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William Shakespeare may have been gay, the artistic director the Royal Shakespeare Company has suggested, and directors can no longer hide the sexuality of his homosexual characters.

Llena Holodny December 30, 2016 William Shakespeare wrote a lot of great plays, but he also coined and popularized a lot of words and phrases that we still use to this day. We put together a list of our 21 favorites. Check them out: "Puking" "The Seven Ages of Man: The Infant" by Robert Smirke, derived from a monologue in Shakespeare's "As You Like It."Wikimedia "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At...

Shakespeare's skull is likely missing from his grave, an archaeologist has concluded, confirming rumors which have swirled for years about grave-robbers and adding to the mystery surrounding the Bard's remains. Four hundred years after his death and burial at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon, central England, researchers were allowed to scan the grave of England's greatest playwright with ground-penetrating radar. But in the area under the church floor where the Bard's skull was expected to be, they found signs of interference.

A recently discovered First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays will be exhibited next year at the Globe TheatreA recently discovered First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays will be exhibited next year – the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death – at the Globe Theatre on London’s South Bank. The First Folio was discovered last November in a library in the small town of Saint-Omer, near Calais in northern France. A librarian came across it when he was preparing an exhibition of links between the area and England. During the Elizabethan and Jacobean period many English Catholics escaped to France, and a college at...

On Tuesday, word spread about the discovery of a "first folio" of the works of William Shakespeare [...]. It was uncovered by some industrious librarians in St.-Omer, France, near the city of Calais, at a public library that already boasts possession of an even rarer Gutenberg Bible. The folio, as the BBC noted, "collects 36 of Shakespeare's 38 known plays for the first time, and was originally printed in 1623, seven years after the playwright's death." As Jennifer Schuessler reported, the folio's unearthing brings the total number of known Shakespeare compendiums to 233. [...] ...over the past century-and-a-half, based on...

Mystery of 'missing' Shakespeare portrait 30 October 2007 NewScientist.com news service It is the kind of argument William Shakespeare himself would have enjoyed. On one side is a claim that a famous portrait of the Bard has gone missing and been replaced by a fake. On the other side, the claim is dismissed as nonsense. The row is over a painting of Shakespeare known as the Flower portrait. Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel from the University of Mainz, Germany, examined the portrait in 1996 and pronounced it an authentic representation of Shakespeare, painted in 1609. In 2006, the National Portrait Gallery in London...

One of the most famous portraits of English playwright William Shakespeare is not him after all, Britain's National Portrait Gallery announced Friday. The Grafton Portrait is one of the most iconic images of the literary giant. However, after nine months of restoration work and research, the National Portrait Gallery announced that it has no evidence to support the view that it is of Shakespeare. Scientific investigation proved that the picture, painted in oils by an anonymous artist, dates back to 1588, when the playwright would have been 24. An inscription on the painting records the date of 1588 and the...

Unveiling of an early 17th-century painting has caused a stir—but what does the evidence say?The unveiling and proposed £10m sale of an early 17th century portrait, reputedly of William Shakespeare, has caused a stir. The attribution is being debated, but what does the evidence show? The inner frame of the 20 x 18 inch portrait includes the title Shakespeare, but this is an 18th- or19th-century addition, when the painting was relined. The figure portrayed is a bearded, balding man in shirt and doublet, with the top left and right of the canvas helpfully inscribed 1608 and AE (aged) 44...

Henry V was a power-hungry imperialist rather than an English hero, the Globe’s latest production of the William Shakespeare play will suggest. Rather than lauding a “band of brothers” defeating the French against the odds at Agincourt, the new staging will show audiences the “devastating cost” of Henry’s “bombastic pursuit of power”.

An enigma spanning thousands of years, the Green Man is a symbol of mysterious origin and history. Permeating various religious faiths and cultures, the Green Man has survived countless transformations and cultural diversities, enduring in the same relative physical form to this day. Although specifics about his beginnings and his worship are not fully known, due in large part to how far back and to what initial cultures he can be traced to, it is a testament to the widespread reach of his character that he is still remembered and worshipped to this day. The Green Man is most highly...

An academic writing for the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre has argued Queen Elizabeth I may have been non-binary in an essay. In an essay on the Globe's website, trans-awareness trainer Dr Kit Heyam referred to the Virgin Queen with 'they/them' pronouns, saying: 'Elizabeth I... described themself regularly in speeches as "king", "queen" and "prince".'

A new play about Joan of Arc, where she is non-binary and uses the pronouns 'they' and 'them', was today branded offensive and sexist by feminists. It is billed as 'questioning the gender binary' but academics have called it 'a violation of history'.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky quoted William Shakespeare and Winston Churchill in an emotional address to both houses of the United Kingdom Parliament which ultimately appealed to British “greatness” to make sure “Ukrainian skies are safe” and to categorise Russia as a “terrorist state”. The Houses of Commons and Lords received an extraordinary address by the Ukrainian President on Tuesday afternoon, a short speech that expressed the Ukrainian experience of the renewed Russian invasion day-by-day for the past fortnight, and which also appealed to the United Kingdom to take further action.

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” That’s Shakespeare. (And an accurate description of the United Nations today!) Before the Great Bard of Avon was “cancelled” for being a white Englishman, most high school graduates would have known that. Quite a few would have even remembered the line comes from Act I of The Tempest. Now they have scant knowledge of Shakespeare’s works, no idea what a “tempest” is, and most likely think “hell” and “devils” are as “cool” and “misunderstood” as Hollywood portrays them in Lucifer. But, woo-hoo, they know all about “privilege,” “social justice,” “gender pronouns,”...

KING HENRY VNow, herald, are the dead number'd? HeraldHere is the number of the slaughter'd French. KING HENRY VWhat prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle? EXETERCharles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the king;John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt:Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,Full fifteen hundred, besides common men. KING HENRY VThis note doth tell me of ten thousand FrenchThat in the field lie slain: of princes, in this number,And nobles bearing banners, there lie deadOne hundred twenty six: added to these,Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which,Five hundred were but...

SCENE III. The same. Before the gates.   The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the English forces below. Enter KING HENRY and his trainKING HENRY VHow yet resolves the governor of the town?This is the latest parle we will admit;Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;Or like to men proud of destructionDefy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,If I begin the battery once again,I will not leave the half-achieved HarfleurTill in her ashes she lie buried.The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,And the flesh'd...

A London theatre has added a ‘trigger warning’ to its production of William Shakespeare’s 415-year-old play Macbeth. The Almeida Theatre in London includes this “content warning”: “This production includes extreme scenes of violence, including violence against children, suicide, and the use of blood, firearms and knives. It also contains flashing lights, vaping and the smoking of real cigarettes.” It further directed viewers to the Samaritans suicide charity “if you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this production” of the over-400-year-old play, which as The Times noted, is considered suitable for children and often taught in school...

In what can only be described as a comedy of errors, an Argentinian TV news channel delivered a stunning, if slightly flawed, scoop on Thursday night when it reported that William Shakespeare, “one of the most important writers in the English language” had died five months after receiving the Covid vaccine. The gaffe of, well, Shakespearean proportions happened after Noelia Novillo, a newsreader on Canal 26, mixed up the Bard with William “Bill” Shakespeare, an 81-year-old Warwickshire man who became the second person in the world to get the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

A writer hired to translate Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hill We Climb" into Catalan said he has been removed from the position by publisher Univers. Victor Obiols, whose previous work includes Catalan translations of William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, told CNN Thursday that the commission was initially approved by Gorman's representatives, but they later decided he wasn't right for the job.

As a journalist, John Scott Lewinski hustles around the world, writing for more than 30 international news organization covering news, lifestyle and technology. As an author, he is represented by the Fineprint Literary Agency, New York.The Covid-19 pandemic has warped humanity’s mindset, turning fear into an intellectual value. Panic is now the smart choice, and those who reject it are considered dangerous barbarians. Sociologists, political theorists and other experts credit the ongoing coronavirus pandemic with forging countless changes in global society. Some are practical, some psychological. Some are temporary, while others will remain in evolving forms. It’s difficult to deduce...