America's Next 250

The word happiness had multiple meanings at the time that Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence, and those different definitions also appear in Shakespeare, a writer whom Jefferson admired.

Scholar James Shapiro looks at how Shakespeare has always “served as a canary in a coal mine, alerting us to threats to our fragile democracy.” He offers as a recent example the 2017 production of Julius Caesar in Central Park.

For the Declaration of Independence’s 250th anniversary, we asked Shakespeare scholars what part Shakespeare may play in America’s next three centuries. Folger Director Dr. Farah Karim-Cooper writes that Shakespeare and what we do with him is more essential than ever if democracy is to thrive.