The First Folio has been called “incomparably the most important work in the English language.”  Published in 1623, seven years after William Shakespeare’s death, and purportedly assembled by members of his theater company, the First Folio is the earliest collection of Shakespeare plays. Many of...

Episode 6 with Sabrina Feldman Ben Jonson and other writers of Shakespeare’s time satirized a social-climbing playwright-actor who stole their words and passed them off as his own. In epigrams, stories, and plays they attacked this pretentious plagiarist, who made a lucrative career by patching...

Is Othello a comedy gone wrong? Richard Whalen reveals the surprising connections between Shakespeare's Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice and Commedia dell'Arte, the energetic, improvised street theater from 16th century Italy. Stock figures of Commedia dell'Arte bear more than a...