Shakespeare & Beyond

Barry Kraft as Lear in King Lear, produced by Southern Oregon University, Oregon Center for the Arts. (Credit: Prechtel photo) What can we learn from Shakespeare’s revisions to his plays, and what does that mean for the actors and directors…

Folger Finds delivers delightful and insightful moments with the Folger collection. Sarah Hovde, a cataloger at the Folger Shakespeare Library, reveals a 1932 edition of Twelfth Night with beautiful engravings by Eric Ravilious. Twelfth Night, the last of the twelve…

Michael Witmore. Photo by Chris Hartlove. Once again, Shakespeare. This year the Folger is leading a nationwide celebration—The Wonder of Will—to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, or better, the fifth century of his afterlife. Why do we keep returning…

l-r: Rex Daugherty (Tybalt), Aaron Bliden (Benvolio), and Brad Koed (Mercutio) in Romeo and Juliet, directed by Aaron Posner, Folger Theatre (2013). Photo by Teresa Wood. We covered a lot in our podcast about Shakespeare this year, from the popular…

Folger Finds delivers delightful and insightful moments with the Folger collection. Sarah Hovde, a cataloger at the Folger Shakespeare Library, shares the story behind a book that belonged to the library’s founder. Many of us have probably given or received…

A late eighteenth-century Shakespeare art museum is experiencing a second life as a detailed online re-creation, the brainchild of University of Texas English professor Janine Barchas.  John Boydell, a British publisher, commissioned depictions of Shakespeare scenes from well-known artists of the day: Joshua…

The Twelve Days of Christmas, from December 25 to January 6, was the longest and most enthusiastically celebrated festival in the Elizabethan calendar. Presiding over the revelries throughout the twelve days was the Lord of Misrule, a clownish figure appointed to organize the entertainments.

Every few years it seems, a newly discovered portrait of Shakespeare emerges, only to be discredited after the media maelstrom. But it points to a keen public interest in knowing what Shakespeare looked like, to put a face to a name with which we are so intimately familiar.

Some people believe that the Renaissance image of “Merry England,” a land of festivity and mirth, was a myth created during the Stuart reign by people nostalgic for the good old days before the Puritans put the kibosh on fun. But scholar Ronald Hutton, who pored through records of church ales and other gatherings, finds more than a grain of truth in the idea.

Frank R. Benson. Folger Shakespeare Library. Folger Finds delivers delightful and insightful moments with the Folger collection. Sarah Hovde, a cataloger at the Folger Shakespeare Library, shares the story behind the announcement of a turn-of-the-century “Shakespearean season” in London. It’s…

John Augustus Atkinson. The Taming of the Shrew. Watercolor drawing, late 18th or early 19th century. Folger Shakespeare Library. In The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio attempts to squelch Katherine’s hot temper by denying her meat, snatching away a roast…

Luke Skywalker strikes an iconic Hamlet pose in this illustration from the William Shakespeare’s Star Wars series. Credit Nicolas Delort. Courtesy Quirk Books. Shakespeare and Star Wars would appear to have very little in common. Or at least they did,…