Inside Shakespeare's plays
Q&A: Peggy O’Brien on a fantastical Shakespeare map
Peggy O’Brien helps us explore a giant, richly detailed fictional map filled with Shakespeare’s characters, newly created for the Folger’s exhibition spaces.
Juliet, Then and Now, with Sophie Duncan
Discover how our perceptions of Juliet have evolved over centuries, as Sophie Duncan explores the lasting legacy of Shakespeare’s first tragic heroine.
Shakespeare quotes about friendship
These Shakespeare quotes about friendship point to the complexities of relationships between characters in the plays.
Love-in-idleness, Part Two: Intoxicating botanicals in 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream'
Love-in-idleness, a flower also called pansy or heartsease, plays an important role in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” as Marissa Nicosia explores.
Blood moon: Lunar eclipses in Shakespeare's plays
With the total lunar eclipse happening this weekend, we take a look at three of the ways Shakespeare used eclipses in his plays and poems.
"Woeful tragedy," indeed
“We’re told from a young age that tragedy teaches us important things about what it means to be human. But does it actually teach us anything, or simply reveal what we already know?” writes Austin Tichenor, who looks at Shakespeare’s…
Introducing Shakespeare and Greek Myths: Theseus and Hippolyta
Welcome to our new Shakespeare and Greek Myths series. We’re starting off with Theseus and Hippolyta–figures who are not only referred to in the plays, but are also fully formed characters in two of them: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and…
Speaking what we feel: Shakespeare’s plague plays
How do Shakespeare’s plays reflect a life filled with plague outbreaks, asks Austin Tichenor — and do we see his plays in new ways now?
Richard III: My kingdom for a horse
“My kingdom for a horse!” A titanic villain in Shakespeare’s history plays, Richard III departs the stage and this life at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Mark the battle’s anniversary with these posts and podcast episodes.
“This is the English, not the Turkish court”: Ottomans in Shakespeare’s Henriad
In Shakespeare’s Henriad – Richard II (1595), Henry IV Part I (1596), Henry IV Part II (1597), and Henry V (1599) – English Christian characters frequently employ negative Turkish tropes when criticizing each other’s corrupt political agendas. However, these tropes differ from…
“Good Peter Quince:” Shakespeare’s most autobiographical character
Richard Ruiz (Peter Quince) and Holly Twyford (Bottom) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Folger Theatre, 2016. Teresa Wood. A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream is one of William Shakespeare’s most popular plays, and for good reason. Frequently a young person’s introduction to…
Better than laughing: Renaissance melancholy
The most famous book about Renaissance melancholy, Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), celebrates its four hundredth anniversary this year. Though it was published five years after Shakespeare’s death, it gathers together ideas about melancholy from antiquity right through…