Elizabethan England

Scenes of winter in the Folger collection, from snowy outdoor scenes to fashionable illustrations to mentions of winter in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

Erika T. Lin studies early modern holidays and her work has yielded some surprising revelations—not only about the festivities themselves, but about the relationship between holidays and what we now think of as “theater.”

Uncover the world of cunning folk in Shakespeare’s England, as scholar Tabitha Stanmore reveals how these magic practitioners helped everyone from commoners to royalty with their practical spells and charms.

Scholar Will Tosh explores the hidden queer lives in Shakespeare’s works, revealing how early modern gender fluidity and same-sex desire influenced the Bard’s plays and characters.

In this busy travel time, try out our “Travel and Shakespeare” quiz about journeys in his plays and in real life, too.

The tale of George Saunders and his hopes for a wife.

Folger Fellow Renée Bricker uses the senses as a way to explore life during the reign of Elizabeth I.

The novelist and Suede bass player takes us flying over the rooftops of Elizabethan London and down into the gritty lives of its child actors.

In her book Tudor England: A History, Lucy Wooding argues that to really know the Tudors, we must look past the famous names and racy plotlines.

The Elizabethan period marked an unusually rich moment for theories of consciousness and for the representation of thought in literature, says scholar Helen Hackett.

From rudeness to gross behavior, Ruth Goodman’s book “How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England” sheds some surprising light on what bad behavior really meant, including the reason that Shakespeare had Sampson threaten to “bite my thumb” at another character…