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Book excerpts, reviews, author interviews, and reading recommendations
Excerpt: ‘Shakespeare and the Political Way’ by Elizabeth Frazer
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Excerpt: ‘Shakespeare and the Political Way’ by Elizabeth Frazer

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“Shakespeare’s dramas, in my interpretation, play with rival ideas of the nature of the political way,” writes Elizabeth Frazer. Read more in this excerpt from the introduction.

These Violent Delights: Retelling Romeo and Juliet
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These Violent Delights: Retelling Romeo and Juliet

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Chloe Gong

Chloe Gong writes about adapting “Romeo and Juliet” into her debut novel, “These Violent Delights,” which focuses on the blood feud at the heart of Shakespeare’s play. The story is about two teen heirs of rival gangs in 1920s Shanghai.

“More strange than true”: Finding America among the fairies
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“More strange than true”: Finding America among the fairies

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Victoria Muñoz

“I have had a most rare vision…” Bottom’s words in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” echo the language of Spanish conquistadors describing Aztec Mexico.

Dante vs. Shakespeare: An excerpt from ‘Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles’ by Harold Bloom
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Dante vs. Shakespeare: An excerpt from ‘Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles’ by Harold Bloom

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The excerpt begins: “Dante, poet and man, is obsessive. This is particularly true in the Latin meaning of the word: besiege or be besieged. Shakespeare’s protagonists sometimes are obsessive or besieged. Yet they can and do change. Leontes emerges from…

Excerpt – ‘All the Sonnets of Shakespeare’ edited by Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells
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Excerpt – ‘All the Sonnets of Shakespeare’ edited by Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells

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Shakespeare & Beyond

Read an excerpt from the introduction of a new book that assembles all of Shakespeare’s sonnets in their probable order of composition. The editors argue that readers can gain insight into Shakespeare’s personal experiences and emotions through the sonnets.

A Folger Summer Reading List
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A Folger Summer Reading List

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Ben Lauer

Check out summer reading recommendations from friends, colleagues, and partners.

Excerpt – ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell
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Excerpt – ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell

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Hamnet was William Shakespeare’s only son, but he died in 1596 at the age of 11. Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel, Hamnet, imagines a story in which a young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an…

Excerpt – ‘Lady Romeo’ by Tana Wojczuk
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Excerpt – ‘Lady Romeo’ by Tana Wojczuk

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Shakespeare & Beyond

American actress Charlotte Cushman was a 19th-century theatrical icon, known for playing traditionally male roles like Romeo and Hamlet. She was not the only actress of her time to play these parts, but her style was uniquely assertive and athletic.…

Excerpt ⁠— Keith Hamilton Cobb’s ‘American Moor’: An introduction by Kim Hall
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Excerpt ⁠— Keith Hamilton Cobb’s ‘American Moor’: An introduction by Kim Hall

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Shakespeare & Beyond

At the heart of Keith Hamilton Cobb’s one-man play American Moor are explorations of blackness, racial dynamics in American theater, “ownership” of Shakespeare, and the subtext of Othello. He has performed the play across the United States, including an off-Broadway…

Living through the plague times - Excerpt: 'Death By Shakespeare' by Kathryn Harkup
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Living through the plague times - Excerpt: 'Death By Shakespeare' by Kathryn Harkup

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What would it have been like to live through the plague outbreaks of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? And what insight does that give us into the mentions of plague in Shakespeare’s plays? Kathryn Harkup has looked at the science…

Excerpt - "How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education" by Scott Newstok
How to Think Like Shakespeare
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Excerpt - "How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education" by Scott Newstok

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Shakespeare & Beyond

What habits of mind should we seek to cultivate? In his new book How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education, Scott Newstok draws on Shakespeare’s plays and common instructional practices of his day to answer this question.…

Prospero's epilogue as Shakespeare's farewell? Excerpt - 'This is Shakespeare' by Emma Smith
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Prospero's epilogue as Shakespeare's farewell? Excerpt - 'This is Shakespeare' by Emma Smith

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In this excerpt from her new book, This is Shakespeare (published Mar 31 in the United States), Emma Smith probes the biographical interpretations that readers have layered over Shakespeare’s plays, particularly The Tempest, and how that shapes what we think…

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