How did this man end of with a copy of the most iconic book in the English language? He says he got it from a friend in Cuba, but the Folger Library has identified it as the copy of Shakespeare's First Folio stolen from Durham University in 1988. Turns out that stealing the book is much easier than selling it.
posted on Jul 20, 2008 - View this thread

William Shakespeare wrote some of the world's finest sonnets. The website shakespeares-sonnets.com is a fine place to start delving into the poems. Here you can see scans of the first edition of The Sonnets as printed by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. If you wish there were more sonnets by Shakespeare, your jones might be eased by the Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up, which lets you remix them according to taste. And finally there's Shakespeare in Tune, a site where Jonathan Willby recites each of the 154 sonnets following a short improvisation on a German flute.
posted on May 24, 2008 - View this thread

Coming soon, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead, probably the first movie to combine Shakespeare, Tom Stoppard, and vampires. It is, however, not the first time The Bard and the undead have been seen together.
posted on May 7, 2008 - View this thread

Martha Nussbaum reviews three recent books on Shakespeare and philosophy. The essay offers an excellent analysis of love in Antony and Cleopatra and Othello, and an excellent discussion of the interaction between philosophy and literature.
posted on May 5, 2008 - View this thread

from ACT I SCENE 4

J: Your pardon; did I break thy concentration?
Continue! Ah, but now thy tongue is still.
Allow me then to offer a response.
Describe Marsellus Wallace to me, pray.
posted on Apr 20, 2008 - View this thread

The Case for the First Folio For centuries, editors of Shakespeare's plays have conflated different published editions (quartos and folios) in an attempt to create one true text as the writer intended. In this essay (.pdf file) Jonathan Bate, one of the editors of The RSC Shakespeare makes the case that in fact what they're doing is editing together different drafts of the play originated by the bard at different times in his life attempting to make better dramatic sense. Essentially that none of the texts you studied at school are what Shakespeare intended to be performed at all.
posted on Jan 25, 2008 - View this thread

Arden: The World of William Shakespeare is a Neverwinter Nights mod created by the Synthetic Worlds Initiative at Indiana University. You can play it, but it's kinda boring.
posted on Dec 1, 2007 - View this thread

BBC/HBO to film all 37 of Shakespeare's plays Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes will produce the entire canon over 12 years.
posted on Nov 19, 2007 - View this thread

Symmetry. Shakespeare. Islamic medicine. Creative writing challenges. Four podcast series from University of Warwick.
posted on Nov 18, 2007 - View this thread

Aphorisms: "A minimum of sound to a maximum of sense." [ram] Journalist, gnomologist and author James Geary has just released Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists [Amazon. recent NPR interview here]. It draws from such aphorists as Shakespeare, Voltaire, Emerson, Shaw, Mae West, Woody Allen and Steven Wright. Also discussed is chiasmus, the Jefferson Bible and some meta. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in your reading have been like the blast of triumph..."
posted on Oct 2, 2007 - View this thread

Notes towards the complete works of Shakespeare [pdf] by Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan. (About the authors.) Documentation. "Making of" video. [previously discussed, but never actually linked]. From the same people: Carbon Life Form, a small Mac application that will die of starvation unless you feed it files.
posted on Aug 24, 2007 - View this thread

Avatar Shakespeare Lady Macbeth Interpreted by Dame Microsoft Mary
posted on Jul 22, 2007 - View this thread

Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare is ‘the first research project of its kind anywhere in the world devoted to the systematic exploration and documentation of the ways in which Shakespeare has been adapted into a national, multicultural theatrical practice.’ It’s a really impressive collection of scholarly resources, great multimedia (including Wayne & Schuster’s Rinse the Blood off my Toga), the Romeo & Juliet Interactive Folio, Canadian Shakespeareans in Space, and ‘Speare: The Literacy Arcade Game.
posted on Jul 2, 2007 - View this thread

In 2003, the Flying Karamazov Brothers workshopped a piece with The Bobs entitled "The Comedy of Eras". In 1992, they performed a show about Le Pétomane billed as "A Comedy of Airs". And in 1983, they started the cycle by creating a vaudeville adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors". When they brought this adaptation back to the stage in 1987, PBS aired a performance live from Lincoln Center. Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of that broadcast, and if you enjoy good juggling or bad Shakespeare, you can celebrate by watching it online: part 1, part 2. (Last two links are Google Video, about an hour each.)
posted on Jun 23, 2007 - View this thread

Who is in the primary position? Abbott & Costello, Bard-style. (singlelinkyoutubefilter)
posted on May 8, 2007 - View this thread

A free audio podcast of The Globe Theatre’s 2007 version of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing has been posted online by the UK's Department for Education for use by teachers and pupils without easy access to a professional production but can be downloaded by everyone. Streaming and mp3 versions available. [via]
posted on Apr 24, 2007 - View this thread

To honor the Greatest's birthday, one could consider his greatest work by reading this excellent post by matteo which touches upon the religious issues facing our confused Protestant hero, the student at Wittenberg, who doubts orthodoxy, cannot decide if he is a scourge or minister, but ultimately accedes to a belief in divine Providence. Or, if you would rather dive into an intriguing amusing royally f'ed up "unique" analysis of the play, check out this extensive theory (?) [cache] of Hamlet which corrects our accepted and flawed interpretation by explaining that a literal reading of the play tells us, among other things, that King Hamlet was never killed; that Horatio--our narrator--is the King's son and prince Hamlet's half brother; that the guy we incorrectly think of as Claudius is in fact King Hamlet; and that prince Hamlet's father is Fortinbras. Oops. Boy do we have egg on our faces.
posted on Apr 23, 2007 - View this thread

A new genre of literary wikis is in the works. Pynchon fans can find as well as contribute answers to questions about his works at the Thomas Pynchon Wiki. The site currently offers sections on The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, and Against the Day. Each offers spoiler-free page-by-page annotations, alphabetic search and a compilation of reviews. The Pynchon wikis were created by Tim Ware, "curator" of ThomasPynchon.com. Elsewhere, literary wikis have been started for James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and the works of Shakespeare.
posted on Mar 18, 2007 - View this thread

Beware the Ides of March. Almost everyone knows that the phrase comes from the story of the assassination of Julius Caesar, most familiarly in the Shakespeare version, although "The Life of Augustus," written by Nicolauas of Damascus, contains what is thought to be the earliest narrative of the plot to murder Julius Caesar, based in part on eyewitness accounts. But, not everyone knows that The Ides Of March is also a band [flash intro] (best known for the song "Vehicle") [YouTube], an epistolatory novel by Thornton Wilder (with forward by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.), an instrumental song by Iron Maiden [YouTube], and two paintings, one by Edward Poynter and one by Andrew Wyeth.
posted on Mar 15, 2007 - View this thread

"Another useful analogy might be with a clearing in the jungle. The web is certainly a jungle, and without a few clearings it is hard to see how the innocent can stay sane in there, and it might soon be hard to see anything at all." The words of poet and essayist Clive James, whose eponymous site is an online galley/anthology of breathtaking writing, art, and video interviews. My favorites include Ophelia Redpath's paintings titled after Shakespeare quotes, Laura Noble's photos of rusty things, and, of course, a collection James's outstanding poetry.
posted on Mar 3, 2007 - View this thread

An Estimate of the Number of Shakespeare's Atoms in a Living Human Being
posted on Feb 19, 2007 - View this thread

For each of the last three years, Robert Pinsky has collected a small set of Valentine's Day poems (and insightful analysis) around a particular theme - poems about love, poems against love, and poems about lust.
posted on Feb 14, 2007 - View this thread

Insults - they just don't make them as they used to.
posted on Jan 4, 2007 - View this thread

Shakespeare Apocrypha including such classics as 'The Birth of Merlin', 'The Merry Devil of Edmonton' and 'The Life and Death of the Lord Cromwell'.
posted on Sep 28, 2006 - View this thread

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116: read firmly by Eleanor, skimmed through somewhat hurriedly by Megan, recited from memory by the cowboy hatted Bill, and delivered with a vaguely cockney accent by Will. There are others, as well.
posted on Sep 27, 2006 - View this thread

More Shakespeare than you can shake a spear at.
posted on Jul 17, 2006 - View this thread

Shakespeare in the Bush: in which an anthropologist tells the story of Hamlet to a group of Tiv, and ideas about the universal nature of literature get the worst of it.
posted on Jun 11, 2006 - View this thread

This evening, I entertained myself with these clips from YouTube and Google Video. Come inside if you like Bette Davis, Charles Laughton, Kubrick, Frankenstein, Shakespeare, and company...
posted on May 21, 2006 - View this thread

Hamlet on the Ramparts is a public website designed and maintained by the MIT Shakespeare Project in collaboration with the Folger Shakespeare Library and other institutions. It aims to provide free access to an evolving collection of texts, images, and film relevant to Hamlet’s first encounter with the Ghost. More inside.
posted on Feb 28, 2006 - View this thread

The things I will not do when I direct a Shakespeare production, on stage or film. "32. I will not employ a conception of Caliban which would require him to wear a ghastly furry costume reminiscent of a hypothetical offspring of Chewbacca and the Wolf from Into the Woods." "358. If cast members, especially fairies, are supposed to sing, I will make sure they can actually sing before opening night." Some of these appear to have been agreed to through bitter experience. I don't know about you but I'd like to add 400. I will not set A Comedy of Errors in a climbing frame which is meant to represent a lunatic asylum and have lookalikes played by the same actor in both parts as if has a split personality (watching that show was possibly the longest two hours I've spent in a theatre).
posted on Feb 26, 2006 - View this thread

The Birds of Shakespeare No, not Juliet and Ophelia. "The eagle is cited some forty times. The two birds of this kind native to Britain [are] the golden eagle and the white-tailed or sea-eagle. [Shakespeare] may have occasionally seen…[eagles] on the wing, though his allusions hardly suggest any personal familiarity with the birds. Recognizing the lofty rank of the eagle and its acknowledged dignity above the other birds of prey, he makes the birds themselves, in the arrangements for the obsequies of the Phoenix and Turtle, admit this supremacy."
posted on Feb 4, 2006 - View this thread

Does "A desert place. Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches." just not satisfy your literary mind? You might enjoy a prose version of "Macbeth" instead (or some other adaptations of William's plays). The concept is not new; indeed, Charles and Mary Lamb publsihed in 1807 twenty adaptations of Shakespeare's plays designed for children and those of us who aren't fans of the iamb.
posted on Nov 22, 2005 - View this thread

Much ado about Henry Neville
posted on Oct 5, 2005 - View this thread

Page through the entire first quarto of Hamlet , or the second quarto of King Lear, or any one of dozens of other precious rare editions of Shakespeare, courtesy of the British Library. Clicking on a page brings up a bigger view of the page, which is handy for taking a closer look at lines like "To be or not to be, I, there's the point". There's also some brief background on the various editions.
posted on Aug 4, 2005 - View this thread

Interesting NPR segment on a Shakespeare production at The Globe done in the Original Pronunciation. Apparently, this makes it easier to understand. I don't know. To me, it sounds like a combination of Welsh and something else - and it's not even September 19...
posted on Jul 20, 2005 - View this thread

Shakespearean combsort. (PS)
posted on Jun 2, 2005 - View this thread

Shakespeare was a barber? Possibly, possibly. Not a bad way to make a farthing if true. Barbers have collected in their long and colorful history their own medical ailments, their own mathematical paradoxes, heck, they've even picked up one or two patron saints along the way.
Their members include singers, dancers, psychics, psychopaths, and cross-dressers. Ol' Will may have had tonsorial talent, but I suspect he'll never replace America's sweetheart.
posted on Apr 22, 2005 - View this thread

The Death of Hamnet and the Making of Hamlet. In the spring or summer of 1596, William Shakespeare received word that his only son Hamnet, 11, was ill. In the summer he learned that Hamnet's condition had worsened and that it was necessary to drop everything and hurry home. By the time the father reached Stratford the boy—whom, apart from brief visits, Shakespeare had in effect abandoned in his infancy—may already have died. On August 11, 1596, Hamnet was buried at Holy Trinity Church: the clerk duly noted in the burial register, "Hamnet filius William Shakspere." It might have been possible that Shakespeare's Catholic father urged his son to have prayers said to speed the child's release from purgatory. The problem was that purgatory had been abolished by the ruling Protestants, and saying prayers for the dead declared illegal. Hence, the possible dilemma for Shakespeare was whether to risk punishment by praying for their deceased loved ones or obey the law and allow those souls to languish in flames. This anxiety regarding one's obligations to the dead, Stephen Greenblatt suggests, lies behind Hamlet's indecision about whether to obey his father's ghost and take revenge on his uncle Claudius.
posted on Oct 1, 2004 - View this thread

The British Library is putting online 93 high-resolution digitised copies of 21 of Shakespeare's plays. They include many lines and passages that are different from those found in the First Folio editions, which were not printed until after Shakespeare's death. BBC article.
posted on Sep 10, 2004 - View this thread

Art to Enchant: Some of the works of Shakespeare as interpreted by various illustrators throughout the centuries.
posted on Jun 29, 2004 - View this thread

Cry God for Harry! England and Saint George!
posted on Apr 23, 2004 - View this thread

William Shakespeare's will (PDF) is just one of over a million historical wills that are now available to the public over the Internet thanks to Britain's National Archives. Among the 100 famous wills available (for small fees) are Captain James Cook, Sir Francis Bacon, William Wordsworth, and Napoleon Bonaparte. An interesting little development in scholarship for the people.
posted on Mar 18, 2004 - View this thread

Ye olde text puzzle.Some Nordic prince who really likes his mum.(via coolios)
posted on Jan 26, 2004 - View this thread

Cleveland Press Shakespeare Photographs Er, no, not photographs of Shakespeare--that would be difficult--but of Shakespeare's plays in performance, 1870-1982. Covers productions in all media; photographs can be browsed by dramatic genre (tragedy, comedy, etc.). On a related note, see also Harry Rusche's Shakespeare Illustrated (outstanding and extensive site devoted to nineteenth-century paintings of scenes from Shakespeare's plays).
posted on Sep 27, 2003 - View this thread

Can monkeys really recreate Shakespeare? So far they've managed to get 6 letters from King John. Set your own monkeys at work, and see if they can do better!
posted on Aug 8, 2003 - View this thread

Apparently monkeys cannot write Shakespeare.
posted on May 9, 2003 - View this thread

Even Shakespeare bashed the French. Here's the play in which Willie the Shake indulges in a bit of Frog-bashing.
posted on Feb 25, 2003 - View this thread

It's like Cliff's Notes for Hamlet, but in song form: here's John Wesley Harding's take on the Shakespeare classic. A sure help to any struggling college literature student. (mp3 download)
posted on Jan 28, 2003 - View this thread

Chris Coutts returns with (sort of) Shakespeare's Hamlet. (Flash) You may remember him for his l33t sp34k version of Romeo and Juliet. Coutts tackles another of the Bard's masterpieces and does him proud.
posted on Jan 14, 2003 - View this thread

Winston Churchill has been voted as the Greatest Briton in a BBC survey. Yes, he gave some great speeches when he needed to, but who gave him the language to make them? Who is missing from the list?
posted on Nov 24, 2002 - View this thread