Shakespeare & Beyond

“The Merry Wives of Windsor” was written around 1597, and is often considered to be Shakespeare’s most English play.

We are used to thinking of Elizabethan (and Jacobean) literature with Shakespeare at the center, but evidence suggests that, although Shakespeare was considered an important writer in the last decade of the queen’s reign, Thomas Nashe was one of the…

In this excerpt from “Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy,” Paul Cantor writes about the Romanization of Egypt and the Egyptization of Rome in “Antony and Cleopatra.”

When European explorers first began traveling into the interior of the African continent, they brought Shakespeare with them. This excerpt from Shakespeare in Swahililand, written by Edward Wilson-Lee, relates the expedition of Richard Francis Burton and his search for the…

Every month, we check in with our theater partners to share a snapshot of Shakespeare in performance around America.

As the arts and culture flourished in Shakespeare’s England, musical life blossomed as well.

In Shakespeare’s England, those wearing clothes adjudged to be above their station were subject to fines or imprisonment under sumptuary laws.

Renaissance fashion was unquestionably distinctive, especially among the upper class, who favored clothing with luxurious fabrics and dramatic silhouettes.

The Folger, along with many Shakespeare scholars, recognizes five categories of Shakespeare’s work: comedies, histories, tragedies, romances, and poems. Take the quiz to see if you can match the right works with the right genres!

San Francisco Shakespeare Festival has been presenting a series of free, short performances of famous Shakespeare speeches at notable San Francisco landmarks to celebrate its 35-year history in the city.

Education was increasingly important in the early modern period with the rise of social mobility, but children were also put to work around the household.

Here are three of the ways Shakespeare used eclipses in his plays and poems. Did you know? In 1598, England experienced a total solar eclipse.