Shakespeare

Topic description and stories

The prologue to Romeo and Juliet, transcribed on the last page of Titus Andronicus because it was omitted from the First Folio. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadephia

Shakespeare’s mystery annotator identified as John Milton

17 Sep 2019

A Cambridge literary scholar suggests that the handwriting on a Shakespeare First Folio in Philadelphia matches that of the Paradise Lost poet, John...

Henry Peacham, 'Silvius', from Minerva Britanna (1612)

Into the woods with Shakespeare

02 Oct 2017

The Shakespearean Forest reimagines the real forests that our greatest playwright evoked in his works. The final book of renowned scholar, Anne...

Mr. William Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies: published according to the true originall copies (the ‘First Folio’) London: printed by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623, Credit: None

Lines of Thought: Telling the Story of History

16 Sep 2016

Shakespeare's 'First Folio', Dante's Divine Comedy , and fragments of Homer's Odyssey from the second century CE, are among the objects in our final...

Apollo Milton Obote, future President of Uganda, playing Julius Caesar at Makerere University in 1948, Credit: Copyright: The University of Makerere Archives

Shakespeare goes to East Africa

25 Mar 2016

On the eve of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, Dr Edward Wilson-Lee explores the remarkable ways in which the works of England’s...

Priceless treasures: in a shot commissioned to celebrate Cambridge University Library’s 600th anniversary, Professor Stephen Hawking is pictured with Newton’s annotated first edition of Principia Mathematica.

Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World

10 Mar 2016

Some of the world’s most valuable books and manuscripts – texts which have altered the very fabric of our understanding – will go on display in...

Detail from Vesalius' Epitome, one of the most influential works in western medicine, Credit: Cambridge University Library

Newton, Darwin, Shakespeare – and an envelope of ectoplasm: Cambridge University Library at 600

23 Dec 2015

In 2016, Cambridge University Library will celebrate 600 years as one of the world's greatest libraries with a spectacular exhibition of priceless...

Preti Taneja in Kashmir, Credit: Ben Crowe

Looking for King Lear in Kashmir

22 Aug 2014

Dr Preti Taneja first read King Lear as a teenager and immediately saw parallels with the Indian culture of her parents’ homeland. Almost 20 years...

Elizabeth Siddal as Ophelia by Tom de Freston, Leverhulme Artist in Residence, University of Cambridge

“I must be present at your conference”

04 Aug 2011

The Cambridge Shakespeare Conference 2011 will bring together eminent scholars, artists, performers and educationists from a wide spectrum of...

statue of William Shakespeare at the centre of Leicester Square Gardens, London

Shakespeare's medieval world

01 May 2010

Medieval culture pervaded Shakespeare's life and work. Professor Helen Cooper examines its influence on the work of the world's greatest playwright...

Children's literature comes of age

01 May 2010

A new Centre for Children’s Literature is providing a focus for research on how children are shaped by early encounters with books and film.

Olga Tribulato as Tiresias and Marta Zlatic as Oedipus in Sophocles' Oedipus the King, 2004

Greek tragedy: setting the stage today

01 Feb 2008

With the curtains just closed on the 40th Cambridge Greek Play since the 1880s, Greek classicist Simon Goldhill reflects on how this creative genre...

Fellow's praise for a great Cambridge tree

26 Sep 2007

A famous tree that has given pleasure to generations of staff and students at a Cambridge college is being celebrated in a new presentation book.