What's New
The Wonder of Will; 400 Years of Shakespeare From the Folger Library
How do we know Shakespeare's plays? For many of them, the answer is one book: the 1623 First Folio. Without it, 18 plays, including Macbeth and The Tempest, could have been lost. In 2016, First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare brings the First Folio to 50 states, Washington, and Puerto Rico. Just like with his birthday, Shakespeare's exact date of death is a mystery. It is commonly said that he died on April 23, 1616, but no record of his death exists, only a record of his funeral on April 25, 1616. more »
In This Election Year, The Belmont-Paul Park Site: Force-feeding and Imprisonment Could Not Stop Suffragist Alice Paul
"The Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument contains the most complete collection of women's suffrage and equal rights movement documents and artifacts in America. These resources help tell the story of women in America and one that will now be told by the best storytellers in the business — the National Park Service." more »
The Occasional Gardener; I Was So Inept That if There Had Been A Garden Court, My Yard Would have Been Placed in Guardianship
Julia Sneden wrote: There was one neighbor of ours who was a lawn fanatic. I think she manicured the edges of her lawn with nail scissors. When she called me on October 20th to suggest that she knew a nice man who would rake our leaves (in this part of the world, the leaves begin to fall about Oct. 15th), I told her that we usually let them all fall before taking on the project. “Yes, but they're blowing over onto my lawn!” she snapped. For some reason, we didn't live in that house very long. more »
Literary Lab Explores Why We Feel Suspense: You're sitting on the edge of your seat. Your heart starts racing. You scream aloud, "Don't open that door!"
Although the project is ongoing, the group's central finding so far is that suspense is characterized by the presence of words that convey how things appear to be rather than how they really are, such as "seemed," "perceived," or "observed." In other words, even if you already know what is going to happen next, the text's description of how things "seem" still triggers a feeling of uncertainty and suspense. more »
