Blogging Shakespeare

Author in conversation: Ian Doescher on William Shakespeare’s The Force Doth Awaken (Star Wars Part the Seventh) 25/10/2017, Shakespeare Centre, Stratford-upon-Avon [spoiler alerts] By Dr Thea Buckley To begin with, Ian Doescher explained the origins of his series, long ago, in a country far away: “I pitched it to Quirk Books right after going to […]

Rapper MC Lars has launched a new youtube series in which he summarizes classic literary works. This week he addresses William Shakespeare’s 1608 tragedy “King Lear”, engaging with plot, themes and rounding off with raps about blindness and filial ingratitude. Series produced by MC Lars and Bryan Atchison. Beat by SMP Productions (http://smphq.com). Video and […]

Stephen H. Grant, distinguished member of and longtime contributor to the Blogging Shakespeare community talks about Henry and Emily Folger, and their lifelong engagement of collecting Shakespeare. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

By Kelsey Ridge, The Shakespeare Institute There are many questions inspired by Shakespeare’s problem play of dubious decision-making, All’s Well That End’s Well, but foremost among them must be, “What the hell, Helena?” Any production has to grapple with Helena’s moral character and determine what motivates her. Some, like Ellen Terry, see her as a […]

By Layla Moallem Sonnet 130 This single is the outcome of a beautiful encounter between Layla and the highly acclaimed musical producer and Balkan Beat Box founding member Tamir Muskat. What started as an improvised session in Tamir’s studio, in which Layla found herself rapping Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 onto Tamir’s beats – became a long […]

By Ella Hawkins The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s Archive features an impressive collection of original costume designs. Covering a period of approximately 70 years, the collection contains approximately 1,250 individual designs relating to 96 productions staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company between 1919 and 1988. Several boxes featuring in the Trust’s collection contain the work of […]

Kiernan Ryan and Ewan Fernie in  conversation. We are happy to share CUP’s recording of Ewan Fernie’s and Kiernan Ryan’s conversation on Shakespeare for Freedom. CUP states that: Shakespeare for Freedom presents a powerful, plausible and political argument for Shakespeare’s meaning and value. It ranges across the breadth of the Shakespeare phenomenon, offering a new interpretation not […]

By Yang Yu ‘To speak, or not to speak?’ This is the title of my first Shakespeare-themed poem, written in 2014. The poem, which focused on the civil struggle for liberty and equality under a totalitarian regime, was recited at the University of Sydney’s Festival of Democracy later that year. My knowledge of Shakespeare back […]

By Lucy Nordberg An interview with Professor Jessica Winston, Professor of English and Chair of the History Department at Idaho State University, and author of Lawyers at Play: Literature, Law, and Politics at the Early Modern Inns of Court, 1558–1581, published by Oxford University Press (2016). While researching Elizabethan playing spaces, I recently investigated the […]