February 2 is James Joyce's birthday. So as a tribute to the great writer (one of the few who can keep the field with Shakespeare, in my opinion), I'll mention the fascinating episode of Ulysses that has come to be known as "Scylla and Charibdis", which deals with Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego) presenting his theories on the influence of Shakespeare's family life, along with some other factors, on his creative process and output. It begins in medea res, as they say, and is written in the stream-of-consciousness style for which the writer became famous, even though it was only one of his many innovations. It also employs two Shakespearean attributes, wordplay and dialectic, to great effect: A Shakespeare fan can have a lot of fun finding the numerous allusions. It also stands very well on its own, and can be read that way (http://www.columbia.edu/~fms5/ulys.htm), not that I would ever want to dissuade anyone from reading the whole thing.