Hamlet
Hamlet Remix: A Teaching Idea, with Student Work Samples
Last week, my classes were right in the middle of two tragedies–Othello and Hamlet. My Senior English class had just finished Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” speech and my Junior Dual Enrollment class had just read the temptation…
Love Letters in Shakespeare
We look at three instances of love letters in Shakespeare’s plays: Orlando’s love poems to Rosalind in As You Like It, Hamlet’s passionate missive to Ophelia in Hamlet, and Proteus’s romantic letter to Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Hamlet on the (very) small stage
Did you pick up a souvenir X-wing figurine for the opening of Rogue One last night? Maybe you’re getting a tie-in edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for Christmas this year, or a poster from the Ghostbusters…
Shakespeare and YA Novels: Ryan North and Molly Booth
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 62 While print sales of adult fiction are down in the last decade, the juvenile market – which includes YA – has actually gone up 40 percent. In this episode, two YA authors talk about their writing,…
Shakespeare and Girlhood
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 60 How does Shakespeare portray girls and girlhood in his plays, and what do those portrayals tell us about life in Elizabethan and Jacobean England? Our guest for this Shakespeare Unlimited episode, Deanne Williams of York University…
Shakespeare, in the original Klingon
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). Directed by Nicholas Meyer. Shown from left: David Warner (as Chancellor Gorkon), Christopher Plummer (as General Chang), William Shatner (as Captain James T. Kirk), Walter Koenig, Leonard Nimoy (as Captain Spock), Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley,…
Reading ahead for "Will & Jane"
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…
Charlotte Cushman, an American star
Thomas Sully. Charlotte Cushman. Oil on canvas, 1843. As we celebrate Shakespeare in 2016, it’s also time to mark some other dates on the calendar. This Saturday, July 23, 2016, is the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Cushman’s birth. Cushman was among the…
Portraits in Hamlet: ‘Look here upon this picture, and on this’
One of the oldest theatrical legends about Shakespeare is that he played the ghost in Hamlet. We know that Shakespeare was both an actor and a playwright, but we have no idea whether he acted this small, but memorable role.…
Gravedigger’s Tale On the Road in Mississippi
Actor Louis Butelli is traveling the world in Gravedigger’s Tale as part of the First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare tour. Read an update from his travels below! Hello, friends! It’s your very own Gravedigger, Louis Butelli writing you. I recently…
Debating Ophelia’s Death—and Becoming a Better Teacher
I am an English teacher because of my English teachers. What dedication I have I learned from a man who had Paradise Lost taken off of his syllabus but came into work an hour early, each day, to teach…
Gravedigger's Tale On the Road in Florida
Actor Louis Butelli is traveling the world in Gravedigger’s Tale as part of the First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare tour. Read an update from his travels below! Louis Butelli Hello again from your intrepid Gravedigger, Louis Butelli! Activities for Folger…