I need a passage for a public reading I'm being inducted into Sigma Delta Tau (the national English honor society) and for the ceremony we all need to give a brief reading from a work of literature or poetry.
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I'd like to read Yeats's The Second Coming, but I wonder if that is a bit too overdone.
I'm tempted to do something short, like the Saint Crispin's day speech from Henry V, or the intro winter of discontent speech from Richard III up through the 'I am determined to prove a villain" line. But, now I'm also thinking Shakespeare may be a bit much given that it's a room full of English majors. Although the odds of anyone else handling that self-loathing filled minefield that is RIII seems slim.
Suggestions?