Katharine Cleland examines Jessica and Lorenzo’s clandestine marriage in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” in this excerpt from her book “Irregular Unions.”
Posts By: Shakespeare & Beyond
Troilus and Cressida is perhaps Shakespeare’s most obvious connection with classic Greek literature, given that the play’s events occur during the Trojan War. But references to Greek mythology are liberally sprinkled throughout the rest of Shakespeare’s plays as well. See if you can identify which mythological figure is being discussed in each of the following Shakespeare quotes.
Thanks for celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday with us this year! We received many creative and inspiring responses to our invitation to #ShareYourShakespeare on social media. Many people recited a line, speech, or sonnet from Shakespeare’s works. Here are a few of our favorites.
Take a closer look at a 19th-century oil painting in the Folger collection that depicts all seven ages of man from Jaques’s speech in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”
It’s springtime, and Sonnet 98 is a wonderful seasonal selection from Shakespeare. Take this quiz to see if you can put the sonnet’s 14 lines into their correct order.
When it comes to the theatrical landscape of Shakespeare’s London, there are the plays whose names we are familiar with — plays like Hamlet and Henry V — and then there are the plays that were being performed around the same time and that Shakespeare’s audiences would have known well, but that are lost to us today. Read an excerpt from a new book about these plays.
Tybalt (Rex Daugherty) duels Mercutio (Brad Koed), with Benvolio (Aaron Bliden) looking on. Romeo and Juliet, Folger Theatre, 2013. Casey Kaleba was the fight director. Photo by Teresa Wood. Is Romeo and Juliet a play about love? Well yes, but it’s also about violence, argues Casey Kaleba, the fight director for many Folger Theatre productions… Continue Reading »
Get an up-close look at the title page of one of the Folger’s 82 First Folios and learn more about it by clicking through captions that zoom in on different parts of the page.
“To be or not to be” – do you know what comes after? This quiz challenges you to drag and drop the lines of Hamlet’s famous speech into the correct order.
We’ve selected some costume designs from the Folger Shakespeare Library collection, and your challenge is to determine which Shakespeare characters they depict. Pay attention to small details that will give you clues!
