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Shakespeare & Beyond

Shakespeare & Beyond

The Shakespeare & Beyond blog features a wide range of Shakespeare-related topics: the early modern period in which he lived, the ways his plays have been interpreted and staged over the past four centuries, the enduring power of his characters and language, and more.

Up Close: An 18th-century caricature of the Shakespeare-forging William Henry Ireland and his family
Shakespeare and Beyond

Up Close: An 18th-century caricature of the Shakespeare-forging William Henry Ireland and his family

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Shakespeare & Beyond

This hand-colored caricature from 1797, “The Oaken Chest or the Gold Mines of Ireland, a Farce,” satirizes William Henry Ireland and his family in their forgery of the “Shakespeare Papers.” The print is full of delightful details that will make…

Order It: Macbeth’s “Out, out, brief candle!”
Shakespeare and Beyond

Order It: Macbeth’s “Out, out, brief candle!”

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Shakespeare & Beyond

As the play’s climactic battle approaches, Macbeth is told of his wife’s death. He responds, “She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word.” And then he launches into one of Shakespeare’s most famous…

Strange Shakespeare: Transforming ‘The Tempest’, classifying Caliban
Shakespeare and Beyond

Strange Shakespeare: Transforming ‘The Tempest’, classifying Caliban

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Kristina Straub

Shakespeare became the Bard of Avon, the English national poet, in the roughly two hundred years following his death in 1616. During this period, his plays were constantly staged in theaters throughout the British Isles and their colonies—but often in…

Where to find Shakespeare in September
Shakespeare and Beyond

Where to find Shakespeare in September

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Ben Lauer

Check out a mix of innovative online programming and safely socially-distanced in-person performances from Shakespeare companies across the US.

Excerpt – ‘All the Sonnets of Shakespeare’ edited by Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells
Shakespeare and Beyond

Excerpt – ‘All the Sonnets of Shakespeare’ edited by Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells

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Shakespeare & Beyond

Read an excerpt from the introduction of a new book that assembles all of Shakespeare’s sonnets in their probable order of composition. The editors argue that readers can gain insight into Shakespeare’s personal experiences and emotions through the sonnets.

Shakespeare travesties, the philosophical and the popular
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Shakespeare and Beyond

Shakespeare travesties, the philosophical and the popular

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Andrew G. Van Camp

There are philosophical travesties, which use absurdity to further explore the ideas Shakespeare raised in his plays. And there are popular travesties, which are substantially less faithful to Shakespeare’s original, trafficking in the most well-known touchstones of the plays. Explore…

And so they play their parts: Double-casting Shakespeare’s plays
Shakespeare and Beyond

And so they play their parts: Double-casting Shakespeare’s plays

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Austin Tichenor

Double-casting is a theater technique (as opposed to a literary one) that creates a meta-narrative, transforming a large-cast play into a present-tense adventure. Actors swapping costumes and changing roles (and sometimes genders) becomes part of the thrilling ride, and theater’s…

‘Julius Caesar’ and Shakespeare’s change in the American curriculum, from rhetoric to literature
Shakespeare and Beyond

‘Julius Caesar’ and Shakespeare’s change in the American curriculum, from rhetoric to literature

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Shakespeare & Beyond

Early 19th-century American students would study speeches from Shakespeare’s plays as examples of good public speaking, not as literature. How did Shakespeare’s place in the school curriculum change?

Up Close: A 1574 map of London
Shakespeare and Beyond

Up Close: A 1574 map of London

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Shakespeare & Beyond

This 1574 hand-colored map of London and its surroundings shows us something of the London in which William Shakespeare lived and worked. Get an up-close look at the map and learn more about it by clicking through the arrows to…

William Charles Macready and the restoration of William Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’
Shakespeare and Beyond

William Charles Macready and the restoration of William Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’

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Alexandra E. LaGrand

Imagine a King Lear that cut the character of the Fool, created a romance between Edgar and Cordelia, and featured a happy ending in which Lear and Cordelia both live. That was the most popular version of Shakespeare’s play for…

Order It: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
Shakespeare and Beyond

Order It: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

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Shakespeare & Beyond

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” But what comes next? Take this quiz to see if you can correctly order the lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18.

A Folger Summer Reading List
Shakespeare and Beyond

A Folger Summer Reading List

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Author
Ben Lauer

Check out summer reading recommendations from friends, colleagues, and partners.

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