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.
Shakespeare & Beyond

Shakespeare & Beyond also explores the topics that shape our experience of Shakespeare today: trends in performance, the latest discoveries and scholarship, news stories, pop culture, interesting books, new movies, the rich context of theater and literary history, and more. As the word “beyond” suggests, from time to time Shakespeare & Beyond also covers topics that are not directly linked to Shakespeare.
Questions or comments? You can reach us at shakespeareandbeyond@folger.edu.

Strange Shakespeare: Vortigern and the women making and faking Shakespeare
Women played a key role in creating, promoting, and ultimately undermining “Vortigern” and William Henry Ireland’s other Shakespeare forgeries.
Where to find Shakespeare (and more) in January
From new podcasts to online events, theater companies are creating great new ways to engage with Shakespeare and other amazing writers.

Quiz: Which Shakespeare character doesn’t belong?
Take this quiz to see if you can identify the odd one out in each set of characters for a specific Shakespeare play.

The curious and complicated case of Locrine
The curious and complicated history of the 16th-century play “The Lamentable Tragedie of Locrine” prompts interesting conversations about the Shakespeare canon and its apocrypha.

Our revels now are ended: Reflections on the Shakespeare 2020 Project
Shakespeare & Beyond readers may remember author Ian Doescher’s announcement here in December 2019 that he would be reading through all of Shakespeare’s works in 2020, inviting anyone interested to join him. Many of our readers said yes! We asked…

Top 5 Folger Finds of 2020
Revisit the bright spots of 2020 by taking a look at some of our most popular #FolgerFinds posts on Instagram from the past year. Highlights from the Folger collection include a beautiful book binding, a striking costume design, and a…

Razing the Theatre, raising the Globe
The story of the Globe Theatre’s beginnings is one of intrigue, legal hairsplitting, holiday opportunity, and the disassembly of another playhouse.
Top 5 Shakespeare Unlimited podcast episodes of 2020
Our top Shakespeare Unlimited podcast episodes from 2020 explore Shakespeare’s sources, his sonnets, and the solace we take in his work. Happy listening!

Early modern recipe combinations to get you through the winter
We’ve created some delicious combinations of our early modern recipe adaptations for you to experiment with over the holidays and beyond.

The post-modern peregrinations of Pericles
The story of Pericles continues to be retold by twenty-first century novelists, among them Mark Haddon, in The Porpoise (2019), and Ali Smith, in Spring (2019), the penultimate book in her “Seasonal Quartet.”

Strange Shakespeare: Shakespeare in the flesh and the beginnings of the biopic
Charles Somerset’s “Shakspeare’s Early Days” of 1829 was a prototype of the Shakespearean biopic and also a critique of the theatrical establishment.

What theater makers learned from 2020
We asked some of our Shakespeare theater partners what the events of 2020 had illuminated for them about Shakespeare and theater.