ferrellweb

mr. ferrell's class web site!

Just as eating against one's will is injurious to one's health, so study without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.

—Leonardo da Vinci

Life & Times

  • Elizabethan Accents
    Learn to regale your friends and family with properly pronounced Shakespearean soliloquies. Part of a larger resource site for Renaissance Faire workers.
  • Shakespeare's Globe
    The Globe as it was—and is today! Lots of pic.'s and information, plus Quicktime VR views of the new theater. Stand on the stage and recite a soliloquy! (Don't mind the construction equipment!)
  • Shakespeare's Life
    A very brief biography from the Stratford-upon-Avon Internet portal.
  • The Shakespeare Homepage
    Short articles about Shakespeare and Stratford. Of special interest here: What Did Shakespeare Look Like?
  • The Shakespeare Resource Center
    Contains a short biography, as well as information on Elizabethan England, the Globe, the authorship debate, and more.
  • Today in Shakespeare History
    Beginning with April 23 (Shakespeare's birth(?)/death-day), these pages provide interesting historical tidbits relating to Shakespeare/English/theater history in reverse order back to January. An interesting browse.
  • In Search of Shakespeare
    A beautiful site created as a companion to the PBS series of the same name. Of greatest interest is the Investigation section, which contains a Shakespeare timeline, notes about famous actors from Shakespeare's theater, sections about each of his plays (many with brief video clips from Royal Shakespeare Company performances), and the "entertainingly erratic, and frequently bizarre" Fribbling Reports.
  • Shakespeare's Life and Times
    A deep site with tons of information about the drama, history, and society of Shakespeare's day. Well worth a look.

The Authorship Question

  • Shake-n-Bacon
    An in-depth site examining the Bacon-as-Shakespeare question through mind-boggling journeys into the realm of cryptography, among other things. Interesting, but it gives me a headache!
  • The Shakespeare Authorship Page
    "Dedicated to the proposition that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare." A rather technical site, full of information to suppress rampant Baconians or Oxfordians. (A large stick also works well . . .)
  • The Shakespeare Mystery
    From the PBS "Frontline" program presenting the Stratford/Oxford debate. Excellent summaries of the two positions by David Bevington and Mark Anderson.
  • William "Some-Other-Guy" Shakespeare
    A good, simplified version of the debate. Deals with the biggies—Marlowe, Bacon, Edward of Oxford, and (of course) the Bard himself.
  • Sir Francis Bacon's New Advancement of Learning
    The Francis Bacon Gallery contains pictures that address the Shakespeare connection, Freemasonry, cryptic Tudor connections, etc. Slightly creepy, if you ask me.

Play-Specific Resources

  • The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
    An archive of plain-text, no-nonsense, full-text versions of Shakespeare's plays. Each scene is hyperlinked for fast access.
  • Open Source Shakespeare
    You'll find the usual run of Shakespeare texts here, but more importantly, an easy to use concordance, covering all the works—find individual words or groups of words in Shakespeare's plays and poems. An advanced search allows you to get quite specific, as well.
  • Wired for Books
    The Shakespeare page here has several complete plays by an American company in RealVideo format. They're probably better listened to than watched, since the video quality is (understandably) not too good, but interesting, nonetheless.
  • The Colorado Shakespeare Festival
    The Research section of this site contains dramaturgical notes for the plays they've performed over the years. These production and directors' notes for individual plays often make for an enlightening read.
  • The Utah Shakespeare Festival
    Synopses of many of Shakespeare's plays can be found here, as well as many, many short articles on different aspects of the plays.
  • Shakespeare's World
    Emory University's site is divided into two sections: Shakespeare and the Players, "a survey through postcards of the many now unfamiliar English and American actors who played Shakespeare's characters for late Victorian and Edwardian audiences" and Shakespeare Illustrated, which "explores ninteenth-century paintings, criticism and productions of Shakespeare's plays and their influences on one another."
  • Designing Shakespeare Production Photos
    A heap of photographs from many different contemporary British productions of Shakespeare's plays. I can't link to this page directly, but here's a roadmap: once at the site, click Browse→Theatre Resources→Designing Shakespeare→Collection. Whew! Hope you make it!

Stuff & Nonsense

  • Titles From Shakespeare
    "Over the years Shakespeare has proved a remarkably rich source for titles of books and plays." A massive listing of titles of literary works that allude to Shakespeare. Whoo! It's big!
  • Shakespearean Lighthouse Greeting
    Create a "North Carolina Shakespearean Outer Banks Lighthouse greeting for a friend or yer pirate sweetheart or favroite Shakespeare lover." That about says it all, I'd imagine.
  • William Shakespeare Action Figure
    I'll say it again, because it bears repeating: William Shakespeare Action Figure! With removable book and quill pen! How cool is that?!? Courtesy of the lunatics at Archie MacPhee. I am so getting one!
  • After Shakespeare Mints
    Probably ought to stock up on these, to get that musty taste of ancient Rome out of your mouth...
  • Monkey Shakespeare Simulator
    Attempting to randomly reproduce the works of Shakespeare (or Hamlet, at least) used to require a roomful of infinitely prolonged monkeys and a bunch of typewriters. Now, thanks to the exponential increase in desktop computer processing power over the past twenty-or-so years, you can dedicate your machine to the problem. Get cracking! (Requires Java.)
  • Cut 'n' Fold Globe!
    Print, cut out, and fold a tiny model of the Globe theater!
  • Hamlet: The Text Adventure
    Play Shakespeare's Hamlet as a text adventure, for those of you who may remember what those were... (Takes a little while to load—be patient!)