“Beware the ides of March”—so says the soothsayer to Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s famous play Julius Caesar. Of course, those words proved fatally true for Caesar, who was assassinated by his own senators on March 15, 44 BC. While the story of Caesar’s murder has certainly been written about in biographies and history books, many have also come to know the story through a more poetic telling, courtesy of Shakespeare. As Caesar has lived long after his brutal death through literature, so too has Shakespeare lived long after the limits of his own life—thanks to his own literary legacy.
This year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and his legacy lives on through his poems and plays. In celebration of the “Immortal Bard,” several organizations across the U.K. and U.S. are hosting festivals, readings, exhibits, theatrical productions, and more for Shakespeare 400. To celebrate, we’ve curated a selection of poems, books, and resources for those who want to find out more about the Bard, his works, and his legacy, which still continues, even 400 years later.