From the conjectured identity of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets to misprints in the First Folio, from Shakespeare's favorite figures of speech to the staging of Othello in South Africa, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare offers the most comprehensive coverage available on all aspects of Shakespeare's life and works. Illustrated with more than 100 photographs and boasting contributions from a team of internationally renowned scholars (including such noted Shakespeare authorities as Helen Vendler, Park Honan, and Jonathan Bate), the Companion has more than 3,000 entries that offer succinct, stimulating, and authoritative commentary on Shakespeare's life and times, his plays and poems, and their interpretation around the world over the last four centuries. All Shakespeare's plays--from As You Like It and All's Well that Ends Well to King Lear and Hamlet--are covered in major articles. There are concise descriptions of allusions in Shakespeare (Ajax, Agamemnon), well-known critics (Samuel Johnson, John Dryden), great Shakespearian actors (Richard Burbage, Lawrence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh), characters in the plays (Mercutio, Ophelia), figures of speech (metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron), and much more. Longer articles explore topics such as Shakespeare's birthplace, censorship, the Chamberlain's Men, film, and Shakespeare's reception in such countries as China, Italy, and the United States.

Confronted with the formidable and at times daunting mass of materials on Shakespeare, where does the beginning student--or even a seasoned one--turn for guidance? Answering that question remains the central aim of this new edition of a guide that has been a much admired mainstay of Shakespeare studies for two decades. Thoroughly revised and updated, this widely used teaching and study tool adds concise analyses of more than 100 new books on Shakespeare published since the 1987 edition. It also greatly expands the section on the history plays and provides separate new categories for film and television and for culture studies focusing upon seasonal festivities, hospitality, courtship rituals, sexuality, and other Renaissance social practices. Like its predecessors, the third edition continues to provide a thoughtful overview of the development and present state of Shakespeare scholarship and its extraordinarily diverse critical approaches--including sections on feminism and gender studies, Shakespeare's Romances, poststructuralism, and the new historicism--as well as summaries and evaluations of scores of bibliographies, periodicals, monographs, and reference books. For beginning and advanced students alike, the guide offers practical advice for doing research and writing critical papers on Shakespeare--including how to select and develop topics, prepare a working bibliography and outline, take notes, avoid plagiarism, and use appropriate documentation following the MLA system. Students will find especially instructive the new model research paper, which provides an easy-to-understand example.

Shakespeare scholar Victor Cahn takes a unique approach to exploring the plays by identifying and explicating the themes that recur throughout the canon. Written in lively language, each of the 35 essays explores a core theme or topic and discusses its implications in several key plays in which it figures prominently. This user-friendly guide not only allows readers to better understand the significance of concepts such as power, politics, marriage or money; the organization by theme also helps users to compare and contrast these important topics across relevant plays. Cahn draws vivid connections between related works of Shakespeare, but just as importantly, enlightens readers as to the pertinence of these themes in contemporary life. While this thematic guide examines all of Shakespeare's plays, particular attention is devoted to those works most often read by students; the tragedies such as Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Macbeth, the comedies including A Midsummer Night's Dream and Merchant of Venice, as well as the historical plays like Richard II, and the romantic works such as The Tempest. Students who wish to investigate a particular play in greater depth can refer to this book's title index to identify all citations of that work.

Shakespeare for Students is an attractive and accessible 3-vol. set of essential criticism to the playwright's most-popularly-studied plays and poetry in secondary schools and undergraduate curricula. The second edition contains updated entries and 4 brand new entries. Youll find a diverse blend of criticism along with plot summaries and character profiles that help further decode these dramatic masterpieces for students. Each detailed, illustrated entry provides: An introduction that provides an overview of the play or poem, a plot summary, an annotated character list, a discussion of the play's principal themes, understandable essays on the play's construction (setting, dialogue, imagery), historical and cultural context sections that illuminate the play's role in inter-curricular studies, excerpted critical commentary on various facets of the play, extensive theme index, a chronology of Shakespeare's life, work, and times ...and much more

This legendary book by an esteemed poet and beloved professor at Columbia University features a series of smart, witty, deeply perceptive essays about each of Shakespeare's plays, together with a further discussion of the poems. Writing with an incomparable knowledge of his subject but without a hint of pedantry, Van Doren elucidates both the astonishing boldness and myriad subtleties of Shakespeare's protean art.

Designed and written for students, this four-volume set introduces the genres and major works that constitute Shakespeare''s formidable canon. Whether readers are beginning with one of the tragedies, a history play, a comedy, or the poems, they will find a full volume devoted to each genre, with thorough analysis of the major works within. The set contains 77 essays, all written by experts, thus offering a guide to the perplexed. Each analytical essay is written with expertise and insight to guide the reader through the poem or play and to foster the full appreciation of both the content and context of the work. Full discussion is given to plot synopsis, character and thematic development, and historical context. In addition, the key passages, which are often the most pivotal yet challenging for readers, are explicated with detailed discussions. Volume I: Overviews and the History Plays ; Volume II: The Comedies ; Volume III: The Tragedies ; Volume IV: The Romances and Poetry.