Montrose, Louis. The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre (1996). A poststructuralist view, discussing the professional theater "within the ideological and material frameworks of Elizabethan culture and society," with an extended analysis of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Mullaney, Steven. The Place of the Stage: License, Play, and Power in Renaissance England (1988). New Historicist analysis, arguing that popular drama became a cultural institution "only by . . . taking up a place on the margins of society."
Schoenbaum, S. Shakespeare: The Globe and the World (1979). A readable, abundantly illustrated introductory book on the world of the Elizabethans.
Shakespeare's England, 2 vols. (1916). A large collection of scholarly essays on a wide variety of topics, e.g., astrology, costume, gardening, horsemanship, with special attention to Shakespeare's references to these topics.
2. Shakespeare's Life
Andrews, John F., ed. William Shakespeare: His World, His Work, His Influence, 3 vols. (1985). See the description above.
Bentley, Gerald E. Shakespeare: A Biographical Handbook (1961). The facts about Shakespeare, with virtually no conjecture intermingled.
Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols. (1930). The fullest collection of data.
Fraser, Russell. Young Shakespeare (1988). A highly readable account that simultaneously considers Shakespeare's life and Shakespeare's art.
------. Shakespeare: The Later Years (1992). Schoenbaum, S. Shakespeare's Lives (1970). A review of the evidence and an examination of many biographies, including those of Baconians and other heretics.
------. William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (1977). An abbreviated version, in a smaller format, of the next title. The compact version reproduces some fifty documents in reduced form. A readable presentation of all that the documents tell us about Shakespeare.
------. William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life (1975). A large-format book setting forth the biography with facsimiles of more than two hundred documents, and with transcriptions and commentaries.
3. Shakespeare's Theater
Astington, John H., ed. The Development of Shakespeare's Theater (1992). Eight specialized essays on theatrical companies, playing spaces, and performance.
Beckerman, Bernard. Shakespeare at the Globe, 1599-1609 (1962). On the playhouse and on Elizabethan dramaturgy, acting, and staging.
Bentley, Gerald E. The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare's Time (1971). An account of the dramatist's status in the Elizabethan period.
------. The Profession of Player in Shakespeare's Time, 1590-1642 (1984). An account of the status of members of London companies (sharers, hired men, apprentices, managers) and a discussion of conditions when they toured.
Berry, Herbert. Shakespeare's Playhouses (1987). Usefully emphasizes how little we know about the construction of Elizabethan theaters.
Brown, John Russell. Shakespeare's Plays in Performance (1966). A speculative and practical analysis relevant to all of the plays, but with emphasis on The Merchant of Venice, Richard II, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night.
------. William Shakespeare: Writing for Performance (1996). A discussion aimed at helping readers to develop theatrically conscious habits of reading.
Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage, 4 vols. (1945). A major reference work on theaters, theatrical companies, and staging at court.
Cook, Ann Jennalie. The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare's London, 1576-1642 (1981). Sees Shakespeare's audience as wealthier, more middle-class, and more intellectual than Harbage (below) does.
Dessen, Alan C. Elizabethan Drama and the Viewer's Eye (1977). On how certain scenes may have looked to spectators in an Elizabethan theater.
Gurr, Andrew. Playgoing in Shakespeare's London (1987). Something of a middle ground between Cook (above) and Harbage (below).
------. The Shakespearean Stage, 1579-1642 (2nd ed., 1980). On the acting companies, the actors, the playhouses, the stages, and the audiences.
Harbage, Alfred. Shakespeare's Audience (1941). A study of the size and nature of the theatrical public, emphasizing the representativeness of its working class and middle-class audience.
Hodges, C. Walter. The Globe Restored (1968). A conjectural restoration, with lucid drawings.
Hosley, Richard. "The Playhouses," in The Revels History of Drama in English, vol. 3, general editors Clifford Leech and T. W. Craik (1975). An essay of a hundred pages on the physical aspects of the playhouses.
Howard, Jane E. "Crossdressing, the Theatre, and Gender Struggle in Early Modern England," Shakespeare Quarterly 39 (1988): 418-40. Judicious comments on the effects of boys playing female roles.
Orrell, John. The Human Stage: English Theatre Design, 1567-1640 (1988). Argues that the public, private, and court playhouses are less indebted to popular structures (e.g., innyards and bear-baiting pits) than to banqueting halls and to Renaissance conceptions of Roman amphitheaters.
Slater, Ann Pasternak. Shakespeare the Director (1982). An analysis of theatrical effects (e.g., kissing, kneeling) in stage directions and dialogue.
Styan, J. L. Shakespeare's Stagecraft (1967). An introduction to Shakespeare's visual and aural stagecraft, with chapters on such topics as acting conventions, stage groupings, and speech.
Thompson, Peter. Shakespeare's Professional Career (1992). An examination of patronage and related theatrical conditions.
------. Shakespeare's Theatre (1983). A discussion of how plays were staged in Shakespeare's time.
4. Shakespeare on Stage and Screen
Bate, Jonathan, and Russell Jackson, eds. Shakespeare: An Illustrated Stage History (1996). Highly readable essays on stage productions from the Renaissance to the present.
Berry, Ralph. Changing Styles in Shakespeare (1981). Discusses productions of six plays (Coriolanus, Hamlet, Henry V, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night) on the English stage, chiefly 1950-1980.
------. On Directing Shakespeare: Interviews with Contemporary Directors (1989). An enlarged edition of a book first published in 1977, this version includes the seven interviews from the early 1970s and adds five interviews conducted in 1988.
Brockbank, Philip, ed. Players of Shakespeare: Essays in Shakespearean Performance (1985). Comments by twelve actors, reporting their experiences with roles. See also the entry for Russell Jackson (below).
Bulman, J. C., and H. R. Coursen, eds. Shakespeare on Television (1988). An anthology of general and theoretical essays, essays on individual productions, and shorter reviews, with a bibliography and a videography listing cassettes that may be rented.
Coursen, H. P. Watching Shakespeare on Television (1993). Analyses not only of TV versions but also of films and videotapes of stage presentations that are shown on television.
Davies, Anthony, and Stanley Wells, eds. Shakespeare and the Moving Image: The Plays on Film and Television (1994). General essays (e.g., on the comedies) as well as essays devoted entirely to Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth.
Dawson, Anthony B. Watching Shakespeare: A Playgoer's Guide (1988). About half of the plays are discussed, chiefly in terms of decisions that actors and directors make in putting the works onto the stage.
Dessen, Alan. Elizabethan Stage Conventions and Modern Interpretations (1984). On interpreting conventions such as the representation of light and darkness and stage violence (duels, battles).
Donaldson, Peter. Shakespearean Films/Shakespearean Directors (1990). Postmodernist analyses, drawing on Freudianism, Feminism, Deconstruction, and Queer Theory.
Jackson, Russell, and Robert Smallwood, eds. Players of Shakespeare 2: Further Essays in Shakespearean Performance by Players with the Royal Shakespeare Company (1988). Fourteen actors discuss their roles in productions between 1982 and 1987.
------. Players of Shakespeare 3: Further Essays in Shakespearean Performance by Players with the Royal Shakespeare Company (1993). Comments by thirteen pe
rformers.
Jorgens, Jack. Shakespeare on Film (1977). Fairly detailed studies of eighteen films, preceded by an introductory chapter addressing such issues as music, and whether to "open" the play by including scenes of landscape.
Kennedy, Dennis. Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance (1993). Lucid descriptions (with 170 photographs) of European, British, and American performances.
Leiter, Samuel L. Shakespeare Around the Globe: A Guide to Notable Postwar Revivals (1986). For each play there are about two pages of introductory comments, then discussions (about five hundred words per production) of ten or so productions, and finally bibliographic references.
McMurty, Jo. Shakespeare Films in the Classroom (1994). Useful evaluations of the chief films most likely to be shown in undergraduate courses.
Rothwell, Kenneth, and Annabelle Henkin Melzer. Shakespeare on Screen: An International Filmography and Videography (1990). A reference guide to several hundred films and videos produced between 1899 and 1989, including spinoffs such as musicals and dance versions.
Sprague, Arthur Colby. Shakespeare and the Actors (1944). Detailed discussions of stage business (gestures, etc.) over the years.
Willis, Susan. The BBC Shakespeare Plays: Making the Televised Canon (1991). A history of the series, with interviews and production diaries for some plays.
5. Miscellaneous Reference Works
Abbott, E. A. A Shakespearean Grammar (new edition, 1877). An examination of differences between Elizabethan and modern grammar.
Allen, Michael J. B., and Kenneth Muir, eds. Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto (1981). One volume containing facsimiles of the plays issued in small format before they were collected in the First Folio of 1623.
Bevington, David. Shakespeare (1978). A short guide to hundreds of important writings on the subject.
Blake, Norman. Shakespeare's Language: An Introduction (1983). On vocabulary, parts of speech, and word order.
Bullough, Geoffrey. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, 8 vols. (1957-75). A collection of many of the books Shakespeare drew on, with judicious comments.
Campbell, Oscar James, and Edward G. Quinn, eds. The Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare (1966). Old, but still the most useful single reference work on Shakespeare.
Cercignani, Fausto. Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation (1981). Considered the best work on the topic, but remains controversial.
Dent, R. W. Shakespeare's Proverbial Language: An Index (1981). An index of proverbs, with an introduction concerning a form Shakespeare frequently drew on.
Greg, W. W. The Shakespeare First Folio (1955). A detailed yet readable history of the first collection (1623) of Shakespeare's plays.
Harner, James. The World Shakespeare Bibliography. See headnote to Suggested References.
Hosley, Richard. Shakespeare's Holinshed (1968). Valuable presentation of one of Shakespeare's major sources.
Kokeritz, Helge. Shakespeare's Names (1959). A guide to pronouncing some 1,800 names appearing in Shakespeare.
------. Shakespeare's Pronunciation (1953). Contains much information about puns and rhymes, but see Cercignani (above).
Muir, Kenneth. The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays (1978). An account of Shakespeare's use of his reading. It covers all the plays, in chronological order.
Miriam Joseph, Sister. Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language (1947). A study of Shakespeare's use of rhetorical devices, reprinted in part as Rhetoric in Shakespeare's Time (1962).
The Norton Facsimile: The First Folio of Shakespeare's Plays (1968). A handsome and accurate facsimile of the first collection (1623) of Shakespeare's plays, with a valuable introduction by Charlton Hinman.
Onions, C. T. A Shakespeare Glossary, rev. and enlarged by R. D. Eagleson (1986). Definitions of words (or senses of words) now obsolete.
Partridge, Eric. Shakespeare's Bawdy, rev. ed. (1955). Relatively brief dictionary of bawdy words; useful, but see Williams, below.
Shakespeare Quarterly. See headnote to Suggested References.
Shakespeare Survey. See headnote to Suggested References.
Spevack, Marvin. The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare (1973). An index to Shakespeare's words.
Vickers, Brian. Appropriating Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Quarrels (1993). A survey--chiefly hostile--of recent schools of criticism.
Wells, Stanley, ed. Shakespeare: A Bibliographical Guide (new edition, 1990). Nineteen chapters (some devoted to single plays, others devoted to groups of related plays) on recent scholarship on the life and all of the works.
Williams, Gordon. A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature, 3 vols. (1994). Extended discussions of words and passages; much fuller than Partridge, cited above.
6. Shakespeare's Plays: General Studies
Bamber, Linda. Comic Women, Tragic Men: A Study of Gender and Genre in Shakespeare (1982).
Barnet, Sylvan. A Short Guide to Shakespeare (1974).
Callaghan, Dympna, Lorraine Helms, and Jyotsna Singh. The Weyward Sisters: Shakespeare and Feminist Politics (1994).
Clemen, Wolfgang H. The Development of Shakespeare's Imagery (1951).
Cook, Ann Jennalie. Making a Match: Courtship in Shakespeare and His Society (1991).
Dollimore, Jonathan, and Alan Sinfield. Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism (1985).
Dusinberre, Juliet. Shakespeare and the Nature of Women (1975).
Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces to Shakespeare, 2 vols. (1946-47; volume 1 contains essays on Hamlet, King Lear, Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline; volume 2 contains essays on Othello, Coriolanus , Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labor's Lost).
------. More Prefaces to Shakespeare (1974; essays on Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale, Macbeth).
Harbage, Alfred. William Shakespeare: A Reader's Guide (1963).
Howard, Jean E. Shakespeare's Art of Orchestration: Stage Technique and Audience Response (1984).
Jones, Emrys. Scenic Form in Shakespeare (1971).
Lenz, Carolyn Ruth Swift, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, eds. The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare (1980).
Novy, Marianne. Love's Argument: Gender Relations in Shakespeare (1984).
Rose, Mark. Shakespearean Design (1972).
Scragg, Leah. Discovering Shakespeare's Meaning (1994).
------. Shakespeare's "Mouldy Tales": Recurrent Plot Motifs in Shakespearean Drama (1992).
Traub, Valerie. Desire and Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Shakespearean Drama (1992).
Traversi, D. A. An Approach to Shakespeare, 2 vols. (3rd rev. ed, 1968-69).
Vickers, Brian. The Artistry of Shakespeare's Prose (1968).
Wells, Stanley. Shakespeare: A Dramatic Life (1994).
Wright, George T. Shakespeare's Metrical Art (1988).
7. The Comedies
Barber, C. L. Shakespeare's Festive Comedy (1959; discusses Love's Labor's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night).
Barton, Anne. The Names of Comedy (1990).
Berry, Ralph. Shakespeare's Comedy: Explorations in Form (1972).
Bradbury, Malcolm, and David Palmer, eds. Shakespearean Comedy (1972).
Bryant, J. A., Jr. Shakespeare and the Uses of Comedy (1986).
Carroll, William. The Metamorphoses of Shakespearean Comedy (1985).
Champion, Larry S. The Evolution of Shakespeare's Comedy (1970).
Evans, Bertrand. Shakespeare's Comedies (1960).
Frye, Northrop. Shakespearean Comedy and Romance (1965).
Leggatt, Alexander. Shakespeare's Comedy of Love (1974).
Miola, Robert S. Shakespeare and Classical Comedy: The Influence of Plautus and Terence (1994).
Nevo, Ruth. Comic Transformations in Shakespeare (1980).
Ornstein, Robert. Shakespeare's Comedies: From Roman Farce to Romantic Myst
ery (1986).
Richman, David. Laughter, Pain, and Wonder: Shakespeare's Comedies and the Audience in the Theater (1990).
Salingar, Leo. Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy (1974).
Slights, Camille Wells. Shakespeare's Comic Commonwealths (1993).
Waller, Gary, ed. Shakespeare's Comedies (1991).
Westlund, Joseph. Shakespeare's Reparative Comedies: A Psychoanalytic View of the Middle Plays (1984).
Williamson, Marilyn. The Patriarchy of Shakespeare's Comedies (1986).
8. The Romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, The Two Noble Kinsmen)
Adams, Robert M. Shakespeare: The Four Romances (1989).
Felperin, Howard. Shakespearean Romance (1972).
Frye, Northrop. A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance (1965).
Mowat, Barbara. The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare's Romances (1976).
Warren, Roger. Staging Shakespeare's Late Plays (1990).
Young, David. The Heart's Forest: A Study of Shakespeare's Pastoral Plays (1972).
9. The Tragedies
Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy (1904).
Brooke, Nicholas. Shakespeare's Early Tragedies (1968).
Champion, Larry. Shakespeare's Tragic Perspective (1976).
Drakakis, John, ed. Shakespearean Tragedy (1992).
Evans, Bertrand. Shakespeare's Tragic Practice (1979).
Everett, Barbara. Young Hamlet: Essays on Shakespeare's Tragedies (1989).
Foakes, R. A. Hamlet versus Lear: Cultural Politics and Shakespeare's Art (1993).
Frye, Northrop. Fools of Time: Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy (1967).
Harbage, Alfred, ed. Shakespeare: The Tragedies (1964).
Mack, Maynard. Everybody's Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies (1993).
McAlindon, T. Shakespeare's Tragic Cosmos (1991).
Miola, Robert S. Shakespeare and Classical Tragedy: The Influence of Seneca (1992).
------. Shakespeare's Rome (1983).
Nevo, Ruth. Tragic Form in Shakespeare (1972).
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