Shakespeare 2020 project – Read through the Bard in a year

December 31, 2020April 5, 2021

General Resources

Several resources may prove useful to you as you read through the complete works. Here’s a handy list:

Kanopy.com is free from many library systems in the U.S. It has all of the BBC Shakespeare productions from the early 1980s. JustWatch also helps you find information about where to find films you want to stream.
The University of Texas offers recommendations for how to split up parts if you’re reading a play with multiple people.
For the Shakespeare 2020 Project, here is an ICS file for electronic calendars and a shareable/exportable Google calendar.
Folger Digital Texts features the complete works online.
Globe Player, offered by Shakespeare’s Globe in London, offers several production videos for rent or purchase.

Books

Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare, by Isaac Asimov
This Is Shakespeare, by Emma Smith

Histories

Shakespeare’s Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337–1485, by John Julius Norwich
Shakespeare’s Holinshed: Holinshed’s Chronicles, Selected, Edited, and Annotated, by Richard Hosley
Shakespeare’s History Plays, by E.M.W. Tillyard

Happy reading!

December 26, 2020December 22, 2020

The Phoenix and the Turtle and A Funeral Elegy: Video Introduction

Thank you to Adam G. Hooks for returning to introduce us to “The Phoenix and the Turtle” and “A Funeral Elegy.”

Adam G. Hooks is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and the Center for the Book at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Selling Shakespeare: Biography, Bibliography, and the Book Trade. Learn more at shakespeare.forsale.

In 2016, Adam curated the exhibition “The Books That Made Shakespeare” at the University of Iowa. You can access an online version of the exhibition here.

Read more about Adam’s teaching and research at the website Anchora, which includes several online essays, as well as some of the amazing resources, materials, and activities in book studies taking place at the University of Iowa.

Many thanks to my friend Joey Bianco of Whim Wham for the animated video elements.

December 26, 2020December 22, 2020

A Funeral Elegy: Additional Resources

“A Funeral Elegy” is no longer considered to be Shakespeare’s work. It was, for a short time in the late 1990s, thought to have been written by Shakespeare. The poem was included in the Shakespeare 2020 Project because the Project took its reading list from the Riverside Shakespeare (Second Edition), which was published in 1997 and includes the poem.

Here are some resources to help guide your way into “A Funeral Elegy”:

The January 14, 1996 New York Times article declaring the likelihood that Donald Foster had proven that “A Funeral Elegy” was written by Shakespeare.
The June 20, 2002 New York Times article reporting that Donald Foster had recanted his own work.
Listen to a complete reading of “A Funeral Elegy.”
Read “A Funeral Elegy” on MIT’s Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

December 26, 2020December 22, 2020

A Funeral Elegy: Artwork

Here’s a small handful of artwork inspired by or associated with “A Funeral Elegy.”

https://the-true-shakespeare.blogspot.com/2016/01/364-circumstantial-evidence-for.html?spref=pi

https://www.amazon.ae/Funeral-Elegy-Citations-Scholarly-Peer-Reviewed/dp/1534810536

https://www.amazon.com/Poems-William-Shakespeare-Shakespeare-English/dp/7510091799

https://shakespeareobra.wordpress.com/elegia-funebre/

December 26, 2020December 17, 2020

The Phoenix and the Turtle: Additional Resources

Here are some resources to help guide your way into “The Phoenix and the Turtle”:

Listen to an audio performance of the poem.
Read “The Phoenix and the Turtle” via Poetry Foundation.
Read more about the poem via the Folger Shakespeare Library or The Matheson Trust.
Watch a fun animated video inspired by the poem.

December 26, 2020August 20, 2020

The Phoenix and the Turtle: Artwork

Here is some artwork inspired by “The Phoenix and the Turtle” from around the internet.

https://www.deviantart.com/asphagnum/art/The-Phoenix-and-the-Turtle-449978712

https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Turtle-William-Shakespeare-ebook/dp/B07RNPM3M6

https://classicalcarousel.com/the-phoenix-and-the-turtle-by-william-shakespeare/

http://www.peerage.org/genealogy/phoenix.htm

https://tgraph.io/THE-PHOENIX-AND-THE-TURTLE-William-Shakespeare-07-18

https://www.epohbeech.co.uk/the-phoenix-and-the-turtle-1998/

Image processed by CodeCarvings Piczard ### FREE Community Edition ### on 2013-12-09 01:50:29Z | http://piczard.com | http://codecarvings.com

December 15, 2020December 10, 2020

The Two Noble Kinsmen: Video Introduction

Thank you to Thomas Luxon for returning again to introduce The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Thomas H. Luxon is Professor of English at Dartmouth College. He is the General Editor of The John Milton Reading Room, an online edition of Milton’s complete poetry and major prose. He is also the author of two books, one on Bunyan and Puritan allegory and another on Milton, Marriage, and Friendship. For nine years, Luxon was the Cheheyl Professor and founding director of the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning, a center devoted to teachers’ professional development. he has also published essays on Shakespeare and Dryden. Last year he offered an an online EdX course on Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Many thanks to my friend Joey Bianco of Whim Wham for the animated video elements.

December 15, 2020December 10, 2020

The Two Noble Kinsmen: Additional Resources

The Two Noble Kinsmen by Dan Hainsworth Here are some resources to help guide your way into The Two Noble Kinsmen:

Resources, character map, and infographic from Course Hero.
Find good resources on The Two Noble Kinsmen from the Royal Shakespeare Company and the British Library.
View a synopsis of the play from the Royal Shakespeare Company or One Minute Shakespeare.
Listen to a full audiobook performance.
See full staged performances from Green Stage Shakespeare or Victoria University.

Thanks for Dan Hainsworth for letting us use his Shakespeare icons, as shown above right.

December 15, 2020August 20, 2020

The Two Noble Kinsmen: Artwork

A collection of artwork from around the internet related to The Two Noble Kinsmen.

From the Folger Shakespeare Library. The two noble kinsmen: presented at the Blackfriers by the Kings Maiesties servants, with great applause: written by the memorable worthies of their time.

https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-two-noble-kinsmen/education

https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/play-summary/two-noble-kinsmen/

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-two-noble-kinsmen-in-plain-and-simple-english-william-shakespeare/1112522236

https://www.wvxu.org/post/cincinnati-shakespeare-companys-production-two-noble-kinsmen-completes-canon

December 8, 2020October 8, 2022

The Tempest: Video Introduction

Thank you to Nicholas Moschovakis for leading our way into The Tempest.

Nicholas Moschovakis is a past member of the Shakespeare Quarterly board of editors and coeditor, with Sean Keilen, of The Routledge Research Companion to Shakespeare and Classical Literature (2017), to which he contributed a chapter on Shakespeare, rhetoric, and dialectic. Past publications include essays on classical allusion in Titus Andronicus and Hamlet as well as an edited volume, Macbeth: New Critical Essays(Routledge, 2008).

Many thanks to my friend Joey Bianco of Whim Wham for the animated video elements.