William Shakespeare | featured news

James Franco writes about his love of Shakespeare and Gus Van Sant's indie film My Own Private Idaho, which is loosely based on Henry IV. "Shakespeare created 1,222 characters, and none of them are incidental: all are fully individuated. It is very moving to think about a side character, one out of all of these Shakespearean characters, then being given the spotlight," he writes in the excerpt from the book Living with Shakespeare, published on Salon.

This morning I brought you an exclusive look at the new Lego Star Wars book. Now we have another Force-related preview. This time, the mashup is a little odder: It blends the Star Wars universe with the work of The Bard. William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher arrives this summer from Quirk Books.

The Twittersphere erupted Sunday when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tweeted that "peaceful Muslims" should "refudiate" the mosque being built in New York City near where the Twin Towers once stood. Palin found herself the butt of many tweets, as refudiate, of course, is not a word in the English language. To quell Twitter-ribbing over her snafu, Palin then compared herself to no less than Shakespeare.

London's Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Monday unveiled what they called the only portrait of William Shakespeare painted during his lifetime.

Five years ago, Al Pacino played Shylock in Michael Radford's adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice , and now, it looks like the duo will be tackling another one of the Great Bard's plays with Pacino playing King Lear in a new film adaptation written and directed by Radford. According to Variety , this will be the first time that Pacino will play the character of King Lear, the aging monarch who selects his successor by parsing his kingdom in three parts, ruled by his trio of daughters.