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Folger Exhibitions

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What turns a good writer into a superstar? 200 years and plenty of spectacle
Shakespeare and Beyond

What turns a good writer into a superstar? 200 years and plenty of spectacle

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Janine Barchas Kristina Straub

In commemoration of the approximate 200th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, the London actor and theatrical entrepreneur David Garrick launched the first celebration of Shakespeare as “the god of our idolatry” in 1769, helping to fashion the Bard as the larger-than-life,…

Repetition is celebrity: Shakespeare and Austen
Shakespeare and Beyond

Repetition is celebrity: Shakespeare and Austen

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Author
Janine Barchas Kristina Straub

As curators of Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity we both began our work in the archives with established interests in the connections between literary greatness and consumer culture. Janine has written about the marketing tactics…

11 actors who have played Shakespeare and Austen roles
Shakespeare and Beyond

11 actors who have played Shakespeare and Austen roles

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Author
Esther French

If you’re a fan of both Shakespeare and Jane Austen, you may have noticed some overlap in the actors who portray these classic roles in stage productions and film adaptations. As the curators of the Folger exhibition Will & Jane: Shakespeare,…

Quiz: Can you pair these Jane Austen and Shakespeare characters?
Shakespeare and Beyond

Quiz: Can you pair these Jane Austen and Shakespeare characters?

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Author
Esther French

Take this quiz and test your knowledge of Jane Austen and Shakespeare! We give you a character from a Jane Austen novel, and you pick the corresponding character from Shakespeare’s plays, based on personality or storyline. Can you pair these Shakespeare…

Will and Jane continued: adaptations, modernizations, and fan fiction
Shakespeare and Beyond

Will and Jane continued: adaptations, modernizations, and fan fiction

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Author
Janine Barchas Kristina Straub

Although the Bard may have a longer history of such flattery, both Will and Jane have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous adaptations. In the 20th century, Austen joined Shakespeare in his entrance into modern media—film, television, and digital forms—as…

Collecting Will and Jane
Shakespeare and Beyond

Collecting Will and Jane

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Author
Janine Barchas Kristina Straub

One of the stories told by the current exhibition Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity is that literary renown is as much about commodities as about books. Literary celebrity transforms authors into objects. Our exhibition traces…

Jane Austen's Shakespeare
Shakespeare and Beyond

Jane Austen's Shakespeare

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Author
Janine Barchas Kristina Straub

Jane Austen, who was born in 1775, came of age in the 1790s and started publishing in the 1810s; her first novel, Sense and Sensibility, came out in 1811. She died in 1817, which makes 2017 the 200th anniversary of…

Reading ahead for "Will & Jane"
Shakespeare and Beyond

Reading ahead for "Will & Jane"

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Shakespeare & Beyond

As you’ve seen on this blog already, the next Folger exhibition, Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity (August 6 to November 6), will be a fascinating look at the posthumous celebrities of William Shakespeare and Jane…

America's Shakespeare: Connections between the Bard and the Founding Fathers
Shakespeare and Beyond

America's Shakespeare: Connections between the Bard and the Founding Fathers

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Shakespeare & Beyond

America’s Shakespeare: How George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams quoted Shakespeare during and after the American Revolution.

From Hero to Lady Susan: Kate Beckinsale in 'Love & Friendship'
Shakespeare and Beyond

From Hero to Lady Susan: Kate Beckinsale in 'Love & Friendship'

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Author
Janine Barchas Kristina Straub

As curators of the upcoming exhibition Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity opening at the Folger on August 6, we could not help viewing the new Austen film Love & Friendship through a Shakespearean lens—and with…

War and America's Shakespeare
American soldier in Vietnam
Shakespeare and Beyond

War and America's Shakespeare

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Author
Esther French

“Extremity is the trier of spirits/ Common chances common men will bear.” Quoting from Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Abigail Adams praised the courage of the militiamen at the Battle of Bunker Hill in a letter to her husband, John Adams, in 1775. From the…

Quiz: How well do you know the history of Shakespeare in America?
Shakespeare and Beyond

Quiz: How well do you know the history of Shakespeare in America?

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Author
Esther French

America’s ShakespeareHow well do you know the history of Shakespeare in America?The Booth BrothersLess than a year before John Wilkes Booth became infamous for assassinating Abraham Lincoln, he and two of his brothers (normally onstage rivals) teamed up for a…

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