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Shakespeare & Beyond

Shakespeare & Beyond

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.

And so they play their parts: Double-casting Shakespeare’s plays
Shakespeare and Beyond

And so they play their parts: Double-casting Shakespeare’s plays

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Author
Austin Tichenor

Double-casting is a theater technique (as opposed to a literary one) that creates a meta-narrative, transforming a large-cast play into a present-tense adventure. Actors swapping costumes and changing roles (and sometimes genders) becomes part of the thrilling ride, and theater’s…

‘Julius Caesar’ and Shakespeare’s change in the American curriculum, from rhetoric to literature
Shakespeare and Beyond

‘Julius Caesar’ and Shakespeare’s change in the American curriculum, from rhetoric to literature

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Shakespeare & Beyond

Early 19th-century American students would study speeches from Shakespeare’s plays as examples of good public speaking, not as literature. How did Shakespeare’s place in the school curriculum change?

Up Close: A 1574 map of London
Shakespeare and Beyond

Up Close: A 1574 map of London

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Shakespeare & Beyond

This 1574 hand-colored map of London and its surroundings shows us something of the London in which William Shakespeare lived and worked. Get an up-close look at the map and learn more about it by clicking through the arrows to…

William Charles Macready and the restoration of William Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’
Shakespeare and Beyond

William Charles Macready and the restoration of William Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’

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Author
Alexandra E. LaGrand

Imagine a King Lear that cut the character of the Fool, created a romance between Edgar and Cordelia, and featured a happy ending in which Lear and Cordelia both live. That was the most popular version of Shakespeare’s play for…

Order It: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
Shakespeare and Beyond

Order It: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

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Shakespeare & Beyond

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” But what comes next? Take this quiz to see if you can correctly order the lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18.

A Folger Summer Reading List
Shakespeare and Beyond

A Folger Summer Reading List

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Author
Ben Lauer

Check out summer reading recommendations from friends, colleagues, and partners.

Eggs in moonshine and spinach toasts: Two early modern recipes for a sweet breakfast
Shakespeare and Beyond

Eggs in moonshine and spinach toasts: Two early modern recipes for a sweet breakfast

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Author
Michael Walkden

Even though the combination of eggs and sugar along with butter and flour forms the cornerstone of baking, the idea of poaching eggs in sweet wine, or adding sugar to your scrambled eggs, might seem heretical to many. But this…

Of the flattering, pampered, reviled, predatory, “harmless, necessary” early modern cat
Shakespeare and Beyond

Of the flattering, pampered, reviled, predatory, “harmless, necessary” early modern cat

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Author
Haylie Swenson

Cats were considered pests, carriers of disease, and indicators of witchcraft, but also objects of affection and partners in play.

Mangled glory: Fact and (mostly) fiction in Shakespeare’s history plays
Shakespeare and Beyond

Mangled glory: Fact and (mostly) fiction in Shakespeare’s history plays

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Author
Austin Tichenor

Austin Tichenor writes about theater’s limitations as a historical record, given its dramatic needs and narrative imperatives.

Up Close: The Plimpton “Sieve” portrait of Queen Elizabeth I
Shakespeare and Beyond

Up Close: The Plimpton “Sieve” portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

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Shakespeare & Beyond

Get an up-close look at the painting and learn more about it by clicking through the arrows to see captions that zoom in on different parts of the image. Click the eye icon to hide or display the text.

BECOMING OTHELLO! A gender-flipped journey onstage and in the archive
Shakespeare and Beyond

BECOMING OTHELLO! A gender-flipped journey onstage and in the archive

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Author
Debra Ann Byrd

Debra Ann Byrd writes about encountering an early female Othello in the Folger collection and developing her memoir and solo show, Becoming Othello.

Excerpt – ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell
Shakespeare and Beyond

Excerpt – ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell

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Shakespeare & Beyond

Hamnet was William Shakespeare’s only son, but he died in 1596 at the age of 11. Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel, Hamnet, imagines a story in which a young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an…

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