Blogging Shakespeare

As the heatwave rages on, we offer this as a public service to all our readers: cool down with the prince of Denmark’s soliloquy. Six different approaches compiled by Vincent More to reflect on the differences laid bare by performance: Benedict Cumberbatch, Adrian Lester, Maxine Peake, Paapa Essiedu, Kenneth Branagh, and Sir Laurence Olivier. We hope […]

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 […]

By Oscar Lake   This following post was written by fifteen-year-old Oscar Lake, who was on a work experience placement with Dr Paul Edmondson, Head of Research. He was based in Library and Archives and helping to prepare a new edition of the medical casebook of Shakespeare’s son-in-law, John Hall. As many people in Stratford-Upon-Avon […]

SBT Research Conversation, Wednesday 14 June By Ella Hawkins, Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham)   On Wednesday 14th June, I gave the third talk in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s ‘Research Conversations’ series. I’m currently completing a PhD in design for Shakespeare at the Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham), and have been collaborating with the Trust […]

Solving Mysteries in the SBT Archives: Ethel Webling and Herbert Beerbohm Tree By Ella Hawkins   Tucked away in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s Rare Books strongroom is an item that has until recently been shrouded in mystery: a unique edition of Julius Caesar with an undocumented origin, purpose, and past. The item features printed pages […]

Globalization and the Humanities in the Twenty-first Century By Alexa Alice Joubin Some people register a sense of place through sweet memories of taste and sounds, others through scent and smell, and still others through images in their mind’s eye. To me, the world is made up of stories. Stories full of sound and fury. […]

“Censure me in your wisdom”: Bowdlerized Shakespeare in the nineteenth century By Alexa Alice Joubin Shakespeare has been used to divert around censorship, “sanitized” and redacted for children, young adults and school use, and even used as a form of protest all over the world. While censors have reacted differently to Shakespeare (sometimes with a […]

Hamlet and Man Ray’s Painting By Alexa Alice Joubin In the opening scene of Hamlet, the Danish prince accuses his mother of not genuinely mourning her husband’s death and of marrying his uncle too quickly: “Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not ‘seems.’” Here he is alluding to “the trappings and the suits of […]

Shakespeare has mattered ever since his name first appeared in print in 1593 with his erotic and entertaining poem, Venus and Adonis. He was 29 years old. For much of the poem the goddess of love is naked and begging for sex before Adonis, but he resists her advances. Venus and Adonis was a sensation […]