Just off the Great Hall, the Shakespeare Gallery welcomes visitors to the Folger with a seventeen-minute video about the library and its many programs and activities and a pocket exhibition of art drawn from the Folger collection which often relate to plays and other programs on stage.
On view through mid-June
in connection with Folger Theatre's production of Cyrano
The real Cyrano de Bergerac, his inventive writings about the moon, and other early lunar explorations—fact and fiction
Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand’s well known character, was inspired by an actual person who lived in France from 1619–1655. The historical Cyrano was a soldier, duelist, and author; he published plays and satire as well as a fantastical story of a journey to the moon, Histoire Comique: contenant les États et Empires de la Lune (Comical History; containing the States and Empires of the Moon), published posthumously in 1657.
Whether inspired by fact or a flight of fancy, Rostand's play is full of moon imagery, including Cyrano's climatic speech near the end of the play. In honor of this lunar fascination, we're displaying facsimiles from the Folger collection of fictional journeys to the moon and lunar scientific studies dating from Cyrano de Bergerac’s time.
