2023-11-13 09:25
As we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio, the popularity of its author is stronger than it has ever been, as his reputation, already at a h… Read More
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Fun and quirky blog posts on Shakespeare, the No Sweat Shakespeare blog gives you the lowdown on Shakespeare with an interesting take on various topics...
2023-10-16 15:57
Some of Europe’s most popular tourist attractions feature Shakespeare in one way or another –theatres, the town where he grew up, the house where he was born, and so on – a… Read More
2023-08-14 15:52
In recent months, there has been a trend in Florida to restrict the teaching of Shakespeare in high schools. This is one of the casualties of the passage of laws regarding sexual content in… Read More
2023-06-28 13:55
English literature is important in the worlds of language and education. From Shakespeare’s plays to modern novels, English literature has not only delighted readers for centuries, but… Read More
2023-02-02 20:47
By Ralph Goldswain
Violence? What violence?
Titus Andronicus was hugely popular when it came out in 1594. Since then, until the twenty-first century, it was largely ignored, probably because… Read More
2022-11-27 13:44
By Ralph Goldswain
The Globe’s breathtaking Henry V.
This is a very intelligent working of Shakespeare’s text. That’s the first thing to say, and the second is that Oliver… Read More
2022-08-05 12:07
By Ralph Goldswain
If kids love a show written and staged for kids then it doesn’t matter what the grown-ups think, and while Splendid Productions’ Midsummer Mechanicals confused… Read More
2022-08-01 11:51
By Ralph Goldswain
Bravo, bravo and double bravo!
This is not only one of Shakespeare’s greatest entertainments with its almost continuous music, including several songs, its magic, lo… Read More
2022-07-15 13:46
History was made yesterday, Monday 4th July at 7.45 pm (UK time) when “the first ever full production of Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto Online” was live-streamed on YouTube.
The… Read More
2022-06-19 17:39
By Ralph Goldswain
King Lear has been called Shakespeare’s greatest play. It has also been said that it’s impossible to make it work on the stage. Those contradictory statements… Read More
2022-06-11 14:52
By Ralph Goldswain
It’s easy to say, as the Globe’s publicity for this production does, that the play was written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher “in collaboration… Read More
2022-05-13 17:09
By Ralph Goldswain
With a cast of only eight actors, bringing this great play, which has some of Shakespeare’s major roles and scores of minor characters, with battle-ground and civil… Read More
2022-05-04 16:24
By Ralph Goldswain
The Globe has opened its summer season with an energetic, very funny and all-round entertaining Much Ado About Nothing. It’s a conservative treatment that pays close… Read More
2022-05-04 16:24
By Ralph Goldswain
The Globe has opened its summer season with an energetic, very funny and all-round entertaining Much Ado About Nothing. It’s a conservative treatment that pays close… Read More
2022-04-28 09:30
A recent article in the UK’s Guardian was headlined “New evidence suggests Shakespeare may have stolen the plot of Cymbeline.”
Well! Using legal language like “eviden… Read More
2022-02-04 14:30
By Ralph Goldswain
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse’s Hamlet could be termed “a play by Sean Holmes, based on an idea by William Shakespeare” for all the connection Holmes&rsquo&hell…Read More
2022-01-20 16:44
Is it really time to cancel Shakespeare? The much-admired English actor, Juliet Stevenson, who has played many of Shakespeare’s main female protagonists, wrote an article in The Sunday… Read More
2022-01-19 16:10
All Shakespeare fans are familiar with the tragedy Antony and Cleopatra, first performed in 1607. But did you know you can quite easily visit one of the very cities it took place in? Alexand… Read More
2022-01-16 06:47
By Ralph Goldswain
Joel Coen’s 2021 film “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is a tale of two stories – Shakespeare’s and Coen’s – and the result is a remarkab… Read More
2021-12-05 08:45
By Ralph Goldswain
Measure for Measure, running until 15th January 2022 at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, has been termed a “problem play” beca… Read More
2021-11-14 09:02
Here at No Sweat Shakespeare we are very busy dealing with questions and comments. They are usually to do with students’ homework and assignments.
However, sometimes we get questions t… Read More
2021-11-02 17:08
By Ralph Goldswain
A group of six amateur thespians in the village of Felching are putting on a Shakespeare play. In spite of having a very limited knowledge or understanding of the Bard the… Read More
2021-10-27 20:38
By Ralph Goldswain
A group of players with nothing more than a small acting space, a few crates to be used as tables, a throne, a scaffold, and some black drapes with multiple places for ent… Read More
2021-10-25 11:28
By Ralph Goldswain
Shakespeare still offers the greatest fun, of any writer, for children. The Globe Theatre confirms that with its half-term attraction, Telling Tales. On a day out to the i… Read More
2021-10-25 07:21
There are thousands of writers and actors all around the country who work in groups and make artistic decisions with their fellows. That’s a lot of fun. All player companies start out… Read More
2021-10-08 07:10
Strong on theatre, flimsy on drama, great on storytelling
By Ralph Goldswain
This is the first test of the Globe’s new writers-in-residence, Sami Ibrahim, Laura Lomas and Sabrina Ma… Read More
2021-10-07 08:58
By Ralph Goldswain
Earlier this week I went to a session of Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank. It is Shakespeare’s Globe flagship project for secondary schools in London and… Read More
2021-08-16 16:55
“Knock knock” jokes are the first jokes kids respond to and laugh at as their reasoning faculties begin to develop. The linguistic trick clicks in and they laugh. The ability to… Read More
2021-08-11 13:35
By Ralph Goldswain
Sean Holmes’s production of Twelfth Night at The Globe Theatre is characterised by inventions and innovations within a faithful performance of the text, with a moder… Read More
2021-08-01 18:53
By Ralph Goldswain
The Comedy of Errors is on at the RSC’s Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Garden Theatre until 26th September 2021. Phillip Breen’s outdoor production is a laugh-a-minut… Read More
2021-07-28 19:41
The name ‘William Shakespeare’ is associated with a golden age in English drama.
The term “golden age” refers to a period when great activity in the fields of the art… Read More
2021-07-10 17:31
By Ralph Goldswain
Ola Ince’s production of Romeo and Juliet is very contemporary. Shakespeare’s friend, Ben Jonson, wrote, in the Preface to The First Folio, that Shakespeare wa… Read More
2021-07-10 15:54
There were no theatres in London when Shakespeare was born. The first purpose-built theatre, simply named ‘The Theatre,’ opened when he was 12. It was so popular that other… Read More
2021-07-10 14:52
By Ralph Goldswain
What could be better than a walk about London’s West End on a warm July evening, seeing people who have spent the past year locked down at home joyfully filling plac… Read More
2021-07-07 15:29
It depends. You decide.
In our time a writer who has plagiarised something is considered a serious offender. If caught they find themselves ostracised by the professional community in which… Read More
2021-05-14 08:56
Did Shakespeare write the “fair youth” sonnet sequence as conversion therapy?
Much has been written about the relationship between William Shakespeare and the Earl of Southampto… Read More
2021-05-11 17:26
Before Shakespeare’s play Henry V opens an actor, as the Chorus, comes on to the stage and introduces the play. This is where we find the three words fire, invention and deck in the sa… Read More
2021-05-11 08:44
Written by Heather ClarkHeather Clark is a content writer and well-qualified freelance writer for a Transcriberry service. She likes to write classic English literature reviews and it has b… Read More
2021-05-04 17:07
Whichever way one looks at it, banishment in Shakespeare is a very serious business.
What is banishment?
Banishment is the state of being exiled or sent away from one’s home.
Being ban… Read More
2021-04-29 17:54
“Bodkin” is one of those lovely Middle English words that adorn Elizabethan plays but that we don’t use anymore.
So what exactly is a bodkin?
A bodkin is a pointed instrume… Read More
2021-04-27 11:12
Written by Ralph GoldswainRalph taught English Literature in England for four decades, founding NoSweatShakespeare in 2004
Erica Whyman’s RSC production has had a difficult birth. Wit… Read More
2021-04-11 09:20
‘The Gods Are Bastards’ is not a phrase that appears either in Shakespeare’s plays or his poems: it is the title of a popular web serial novel by D.D. Webb – a serial… Read More
2021-03-26 12:46
The name ‘William Shakespeare’ is often associated with a golden age in English drama.
The term ‘golden age’ refers to a period when great activity in the fields of t… Read More
2021-03-04 21:29
Shakespeare’s immortal Romeo and Juliet story, about a pair of star-crossed lovers, is one of the most famous stories in all of English literature. It is a tragic love story about two… Read More
2021-02-21 08:29
Shakespeare created some of the most famous romantic couples in literature: Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Othello and Desdemona, etc.
But what about the Shakespeare bromances? Tho… Read More
2021-02-10 13:12
Written by Jessie ClarkJessie writes about design, education, and marketing for EssayHub,com, a popular essay writing service. She is also an artist herself, using her passion as an opportu… Read More
2021-02-04 19:41
Aesthetic moodboards have been all the rage on social media lately – especially the literary “academia” aesthetic. So, we thought, why not take those aesthetic moodboards a… Read More
2021-01-15 14:33
Today, William Shakespeare is acknowledged as one of the most important writers in the English language, of any era, and perhaps the best of all time… but many people still want to kn… Read More
2021-01-15 10:29
Written by Vivienne BellVivienne has been a passionate writer for her entire life. Upon graduating from MIT’s Department of Linguistics and Philosophy she has found her path as a writ… Read More
2021-01-09 22:12
Tragic Shakespeare plays are famous for the sheer volume of death and heartbreak. Trying to catalogue all of the saddest moments in his plays would take forever! But which are the saddest? H… Read More
2020-12-22 12:59
When we talk to each other we make linguistic shortcuts by using metaphors, which we get from the large range of the activities that we share. One of those is sport. We may tell our friend h… Read More
2020-12-20 09:46
Shakespeare’s old Globe Theater was built almost exactly 422 years ago! Well, kind of.
The building process started on December 28th, 1598, but when it was finished and how it was bui… Read More
2020-12-14 06:31
Written by Thomas MooreThomas Moore is an educator and a professional freelance writer who works for a Write My Essay For Me service. He enjoys writing useful pieces and teaching kids. He i… Read More
2020-12-13 10:35
As we open our eyes to another new year, custom dictates we make the odd new year’s resolution to try and keep (at least until the end of January!).
Here at NoSweatShakespeare we&rsqu&hell…Read More
2020-12-10 20:51
It’s fitting that one of the first people in England to receive a vaccine for coronavirus was an Englishman from Warwickshire – one William Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare recei… Read More
2020-12-09 11:54
Written by Thomas MooreThomas Moore is an educator and a professional freelance writer who works for a Write My Essay For Me service. He enjoys writing useful pieces and teaching kids. He i… Read More
2020-12-09 10:55
I was recently invited to do a podcast for That Shakespeare Life with Cassidy Cash, discussing Sir William D’Avenant.
I jumped at the chance, went and read up on him in some detail, an… Read More
2020-12-08 11:35
Let’s get real: we all have a lot of questions about Shakespeare. His plays can be confusing! That’s why we hosted a Shakespeare homework help session during our Instagram takeov… Read More
2020-11-24 11:04
The answer is no, Shakespeare didn’t, but his (possible) illegitimate son did!
We are frequently taken by surprise when learning of some of the ancient technology discovered by archaeo… Read More
2020-11-19 12:31
Written by Phil CollinsPhil Collins is an educator and essayist who works as an independent freelance writer at EssayService. Holding an MA in Art, Literature, and Society, he helps student… Read More
2020-11-05 16:14
Othello is not usually a character that pops up in lists of Shakespeare’s villains, but it is possible to make the argument that Othello was a villain. In this article we’ll expl… Read More
2020-11-02 14:19
Written by Jennifer LockmanWritten by Jennifer Lockman Jennifer is a passionate, custom essay writer with 5+ years of experience. She sees writing as an opportunity to express yourself and… Read More
2020-11-01 09:15
Written by Moazzam AliAuthor of ‘Essence of English Intellectual Life’
Shakespeare does not suggest this or that. He is not an “egotistic sublime”. He is not declari… Read More
2020-10-28 09:15
Written by Moazzam AliAuthor of ‘Essence of English Intellectual Life’
Every text that Shakespeare wrote has its own culture, characters, atmosphere, and specificity. Starting a… Read More
2020-10-25 09:14
Written by Moazzam AliAuthor of ‘Essence of English Intellectual Life’
Shakespeare’s King Lear is not a play about morality or love. It’s not a play about individual… Read More
2020-10-21 08:14
Written by Moazzam AliAuthor of ‘Essence of English Intellectual Life’
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said that Shakespeare’s characters are “free artists of themselv… Read More
2020-10-19 08:42
Contrary to popular belief, Shakespeare did not write in Old or Early English. Shakespeare’s language was actually Early Modern English, also known as Elizabethan English – much… Read More
2020-10-18 14:10
Now that virtual learning has brought us from blackboards to Zoom calls, you might be struggling with either learning or teaching from home — especially when the topic is some 400-year… Read More
2020-10-18 08:13
Written by Moazzam AliAuthor of ‘Essence of English Intellectual Life’
Great writers do not reflect their times. They grasp the reality of their time, make it a part of their un… Read More
2020-10-14 08:13
Written by Moazzam AliAuthor of ‘Essence of English Intellectual Life’
Hamlet seems to be closest of Shakespeare’s plays to modern times, though it was composed in the ear… Read More
2020-10-14 07:18
The ‘Hamlet skull scene’ – most commonly known as the ‘gravedigger scene’ appears in William Shakespeare‘s famous tragedy Hamlet.
In this article, we&rsqu&hell…Read More
2020-10-13 19:49
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is a name that evokes curiosity from some and frustration from others. Today, it is most commonly associated with theories about Shakespeare’s supp… Read More
2020-10-13 11:26
Montagues and Capulets appear in the famous love tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. The feud between the houses of Montagues and Capulets forms the basis of Shakespeare&rsqu&hell…Read More
2020-10-10 17:17
Religion was extremely important in Shakespearean England. It influenced everyone’s actions and thoughts. Because it had politics behind it and the Protestant Queen was firm on the cha… Read More
2020-10-09 10:11
Is The Lion King based on Hamlet? To some extent, yes, though there are a number of differences too.
A word of caution, however. One cannot uproot a work of art from one place and plant it s… Read More
2020-10-08 15:02
Ever wondered why there are so many Romeo and Juliet songs kicking around?
Of all of Shakespeare’s plays, Romeo and Juliet is arguably the one that has most permeated the public consci… Read More
2020-10-06 05:28
The Weird Sisters: these characters elevate the story of Macbeth from typical regicide (you know, casual) to the supernatural. Think about it — without those three witches, would Macbe… Read More
2020-10-04 14:36
If you like conspiracy theories, here’s one Shakespeare would probably not have thanked you for. In the years after his death, there was a fellow going around telling people that he wa… Read More
2020-10-02 10:20
‘Flibbertigibbit’ is a word that has been kicked around like a soccer ball, going right back to its Mediaeval origins, having a slightly different meaning with almost every trace… Read More
2020-09-30 16:44
The term, ‘tragic hero’ is closely associated with the genre called Tragedy. A tragedy is a dramatic representation of a story in which the ending is somehow catastrophic and sho… Read More
2020-09-28 09:07
William Shakespeare is a writer we all know. In fact, most of those romantic lines you sometimes use on your partners were written by him; Yes, the same Shakespeare we were forced to read in… Read More
2020-09-25 17:25
Read our list of Shakespeare plays below, sorted alphabetically, by date written and by word length.
Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays during his lifetime, possibly more (there is at least… Read More
2020-09-22 09:55
We’ve been thinking a lot about Hamlet’s immortal lines ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’ lately. We just updated our page which gives a detailed analysis of… Read More
2020-09-21 08:54
The villains in Shakespeare’s plays are often completely cruel. Iago? Why did he have to do Othello like that? Claudius? Seriously, you had to kill your brother?
But every once… Read More
2020-09-15 14:09
Through thousands of years of human history people have been writing and reading books, poems, and other literary works. Not everyone can be a writer, and not everyone can create fascinating… Read More
2020-09-09 10:45
We all know the stories of Juliet and Ophelia, but do you know who Paulina is, or Mistress Overdone? And do you know *everything* about Cleopatra’s story? We’re gonna move four o… Read More
2020-09-02 20:50
Though so many rumors (and conspiracy theories!) abound, not too many concrete facts are known about Shakespeare. We have a page on Shakespeare facts, detailing the bog standard Shakespeare… Read More
2020-08-20 11:39
Original pronunciation (also known as “OP” or “Shakespeare’s pronunciation”) is the concept of understanding, performing or listening to Shakespeare’s wor… Read More
2020-08-20 07:29
I have come across a book whose title compelled me to open it as it lay on my desk among other new books. Like the book’s contents, the title is both playful and serious and it struck… Read More
2020-06-30 07:00
Even 400 years after his passing, Shakespeare remains relevant in the 21st century. The reach of the playwright is extensive, and people from all over the globe and all walks of life ha… Read More
2020-06-29 07:16
Parenting has always been a challenge, and it sure wasn’t easy over 400 years ago. Still, there are classic Renaissance childrearing headaches that many parents can undoubtedly relate… Read More
2020-06-27 14:23
Let’s talk about Shakespeare and betrayal.
You know those jaw-dropping moments in reality TV where best friends secretly trash-talk each other, or someone is dating two people at once… Read More
2020-06-27 13:29
Students often have to analyze different forms of poetry for their literature and English composition class. It is not that easy, and sonnets are among the most common objects of analysis.
T… Read More
2020-06-19 14:31
Sonnets are a kind of lyrical poem – a poem with a kind of musical flow that is easy to read and adapts to some musicality. These compositions convey the emotions of the author creativ… Read More
2020-06-17 08:40
If you love Shakespeare – and Shakespeare books – but are looking for something a little more modern and nail-biting to spice up your reading list, here are six mystery-style Sha… Read More
2020-06-09 07:54
Articles
“‘Obscured by Dreams’: Race, Empire, and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” by Margo Hendricks
Hendricks’s essay delves… Read More
2020-06-05 08:10
Shakespeare’s career was shaped by riots, contemporary as well as historical. Romeo and Juliet and Coriolanus both respond to social upheaval during his lifetime (l… Read More
2020-05-31 16:09
Although he lived over 400 years ago, Shakespeare has something to say for all times, proven by the quotes from his works below that can be seen to relate directly to today’s global co… Read More
2020-05-27 10:38
Shakespeare had a massive impact on the English language, and his works are still admired even today, 400 years after his time.
As a student you probably studied his work in quite a lot of d… Read More
2020-05-24 17:35
You cannot talk about the English language without mentioning Shakespeare. He is a renowned writer that has had a massive contribution to the language. In fact, he is arguably the most signi… Read More
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