Shakespeare in American Life
Men of Letters: Shakespeare's Influence on Abraham Lincoln
Learn more about Shakespeare’s enduring influence on Lincoln—and on Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
Duke Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder: Shakespeare and jazz
It’s been 60 years since Duke Ellington recorded Such Sweet Thunder, a jazz suite based on Shakespeare’s plays. Eleven songs are linked to Shakespearean characters like Othello and Lady Macbeth, and the final number is a tribute to Shakespeare himself.
What makes Shakespeare musicals 'American'
While Shakespeare musicals borrowed plots, characters, and situations from England’s best-known poet, they remained essentially “American.”
This whimsical Shakespeare atlas takes you around the world to the places in his plays
This 1934 Shakespeare atlas from the Folger collection contains 19 hand-drawn maps of places (both real and imaginary) from scenes in Shakespeare plays.
Orson Welles and the Voodoo 'Macbeth' that launched his directing career
That’s a hot ticket! (Photo Credit: Library of Congress) Can you feel the feverish excitement in the air? This photograph from April 14, 1936, shows the crowded streets outside the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem on opening night for the Federal Theatre…
Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, and the president's assassination
Abraham Lincoln. Copyright 1894 by H.W. Fay. Folger Shakespeare Library. Growing up on the frontier, Abraham Lincoln had few books to read in his early days—but among them were the works of Shakespeare, which Lincoln cherished throughout his life. The…