The Latest Breaking News from Shakespeare

Coogler’s vampire thriller swept the Oscar nominations over Chloé Zhao’s tearjerker and Paul Thomas Anderson’s counterculture thriller. This genre-defying drama about the black experience could now rule awards season

The Irish star is up for the best actress Academy Award for Hamnet.

Last year marked 250 years since the birth of the English novelist Jane Austen. The Conversation celebrated this important literary milestone with a series of articles and a dedicated podcast, Jane Austen’s Paper Trail. This special year saw a variety of high-profile celebratory events across the country, from regency balls…

An exploration of what constitutes the literary arts – plus all the ‘troubled hearts’ and demons that accompany it – through the lens of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

In her eighth novel Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell imagines the short life and tragic death of Shakespeare’s only son, aged 11, in 1596. Although it is not known how Hamnet died, O’Farrell attributes his death to the plague. She creates a visceral and affecting portrait of his swift decline and the…

Paul Mescal says Hamnet’s ending shows the impact of grief and the visually striking image of William Shakespeare covered in cracking clay at the end helps to portray this.

As Hamnet arrives on the big screen, many fans of the book may feel a familiar mix of excitement and trepidation. They may wonder how the film will bring to life Maggie O'Farrell’s intimate portrayal of Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes, and the loss of their son.

4/5 Jessie Buckley, already the Best Actress Oscar frontrunner, is remarkable as William Shakespeare’s wife Agnes in Chloé Zhao’s speculative grief drama

For films and books about Shakespeare’s life, there is little source material to draw on beyond the few known facts of the great writer’s parentage, hometown, marriage, children, property and death. Shakespeare biopics therefore require considerable speculation and invention on the part of writers and directors.