Shakespeare Resources

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"The first three volumes contain concordances to the individual plays, to the characters, to the poems (singly and together), and to the complete works.... The last three volumes contain a concordance to the complete works with cumulative statistical information, a context for each word, an index of all the words arranged according to frequency of occurrence, and a complete list of homographs."
v. 1. Drama and character concordances to the folio comedies -- v. 2. Drama and character concordances to the folio histories; Concordances to the non-dramatic works -- v. 3. Drama and character concordances to the folio tragedies; and Pericles, The two noble kinsmen, Sir Thomas More -- v. 4. A concordance to the Complete works, A-HILDING -- v. 5. A concordance to the Complete works, HILDING-SEVERING -- v. 6. A concordance to the Complete works, SEVERITY-ZWAGGER'D, and Appendices

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A definitive dictionary of pronunciation for all the words Shakespeare used in his plays.

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The first book ever to focus on Shakespeare's coinages, covering terms and meanings still used today. Includes fun quizzes on Shakespearean trivia. A must for Bardophiles everywhere!

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In this ingenious book, Dale Coye has provided a guide to each significant word, line-by line, scene-by-scene, in twenty of Shakespeare's most popular plays.

Making innovative use of digital and library archives, this book explores how Shakespeare used language to interact with the verbal marketplace of early modern England. By also combining word history with book history, Jonathan P. Lamb demonstrates Shakespeare's response to the world of words around him, in and through the formal features of his works. In chapters that focus on particular rhetorical features in Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Hamlet, and Troilus and Cressida, Lamb argues that we can best understand Shakespeare's writing practice by scrutinizing how the formal features of his works circulated in an economy of imaginative writing. Shakespeare's interactions with this verbal market preceded and made possible his reputation as a playwright and dramatist. He was, in his time, a great buyer and seller of words.

"The object of this work is to bring into focus much available authoritative information on the employment by Shakespeare of words in their different settings, and to furnish the student with a readily accessible aid for helping him to fix upon the precise meaning of the dramatist's diverse and often puzzling use of them."

Shakespeare's use of sexual language, imagery and erotic themes is extensive, varied, and although this is necessarily hard to establish, probably innovative at times. This glossary provides a first-hand guide to Shakespeare's sexual language, some of which is notoriously difficult to unravel and whose roots go back into earlier literature. Compiled by Gordon Williams, author of the authoritative three volume Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature, this is a comprehensive but concise reference guide to sexual language and imagery in Shakespeare. Entries are cross-referenced and include references to textual examples where possible.

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David Crystal, one of the world's foremost authorities on the English language, takes a fresh look at the vocabulary of Shakespeare's poems and plays and compiled a glossary of nearly 14,000 words and meanings.

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'You speak a language that I understand not.' Hermione's words to Leontes in The Winter's Tale are likely to ring true with many people reading or watching Shakespeare's plays today. For decades, people have been studying Shakespeare's life and times, and in recent years there has been a renewed surge of interest into aspects of his language. So how can we better understand Shakespeare? How did he manipulate language to produce such an unrivalled body of work, which has enthralled generations both as theatre and as literature? David Crystal addresses these and many other questions in this lively and original introduction to Shakespeare's language. Covering in turn the five main dimensions of language structure - writing system, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and conversational style - the book shows how examining these linguistic 'nuts and bolts' can help us achieve a greater appreciation of Shakespeare's linguistic creativity.

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Playing Shakespeare is the premier guide to understanding and appreciating the mastery of the world's greatest playwright. Together with Royal Shakespeare Company actors-among them Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, and David Suchet-John Barton demonstrates how to adapt Elizabethan theater for the modern stage. The director begins by explicating Shakespeare's verse and prose, speeches and soliloquies, and naturalistic and heightened language to discover the essence of his characters. In the second section, Barton and the actors explore nuance in Shakespearean theater, from evoking irony and ambiguity and striking the delicate balance of passion and profound intellectual thought, to finding new approaches to playing Shakespeare's most controversial creation, Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice. A practical and essential guide, Playing Shakespeare will stand for years as the authoritative favorite among actors, scholars, teachers, and students.

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 1
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1979, 50 minutes
Featured Speakers: David Suchet, John Barton, Laurence Olivier, Trevor Nunn, Patrick Stewart, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Henry Ainley, Ian McKellen, Edith Evans, Alan Howard, Michael Pennington, Jane Lapotaire, Melvyn Bragg; Terry Hands
"Members of the Royal Shakespeare Company present a workshop before a television studio audience in which they interpret the rhythms and pronunciation of Shakespeare's English."

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 2
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1979, 53 minutes
Featured Speakers: David Suchet, John Barton, Trevor Nunn, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Howard, Michael Pennington, Melvyn Bragg; Terry Hands
"Members of the Royal Shakespeare Company present a workshop before a television studio audience to demonstrate how they rehearse and learn to perform Shakespeare's plays"

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 3
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1982, 48 minutes
Featured Speakers: Sir Ben Kingsley, David Suchet, John Barton, Ian McKellen, Alan Howard, Sheila Hancock, Lisa Harrow, Mike Gwilym
"In this workshop, director John Barton and members of the Royal Shakespeare Company discuss how modern expectations of naturalistic theater can be balanced with Shakespeare's heightened language, and how to read Shakespeare's texts, which were written two hundred years before "motivation" and "characterization" entered the critical vocabulary. Barton and the actors analyse the question of how to understand Shakespeare's texts, citing examples of his plays, and by contrast, the writings of other British authors of the period."

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 4
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1982, 48 minutes
Featured Speakers: David Suchet, John Barton, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Howard, Sheila Hancock, Jane Lapotaire, Sinéad Cusack, Lisa Harrow, Michael Williams
"Presenter/director John Barton guides members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in a discussion and dramatization of Shakespeare's use of blank verse. In the course of trying out different stresses, the actors discover how Shakespeare uses antithesis, short lines, end-stopped lines, and pauses in the middle of a line, and why Shakespeare's lines sometimes mis-scan. Also includes examples from the Miracle plays and other writings to demonstrate the alternatives to iambic pentameter."

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 5
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1982, 50 minutes
Featured Speakers: Sir Ben Kingsley, David Suchet, Roger Rees, John Barton, Stephen Fry, Patrick Stewart, Frank R. Benson, Michael Pennington, Sinéad Cusack, Lisa Harrow, Michael Williams; Hugh Laurie
"Presenter/director John Barton guides members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in a discussion and dramatization of Shakespeare's use of language to define character, and his characters' use of heightened language to achieve their intentions. Explores the Elizabethan relish of words and the use of Elizabethan English in the development of Shakespeare's characters."

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 6
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1982, 51 minutes
Featured Speakers: David Suchet, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, John Barton, Patrick Stewart, Tony Church, Dame Judi Dench, Alan Howard, Michael Pennington, Sir Donald Sinden, Jane Lapotaire, Sinéad Cusack, Lisa Harrow, Richard Pasco, Susan Fleetwood
"Presenter/director John Barton guides members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in a discussion and dramatization of Shakespeare's use of dialogue and soliloquy for story and audience purposes. Barton explains the differences between the two, what they contain, and how they arise."

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 7
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1982, 50 minutes
Featured Speakers: Sir Ben Kingsley, David Suchet, John Barton, Tony Church, Alan Howard, Michael Pennington, Jane Lapotaire, Mike Gwilym, Norman Rodway, Richard Pasco
"Presenter/director John Barton guides members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in a discussion and dramatization of Shakespeare's use of irony and ambiguity. Barton analyzes some of Shakespeare's texts with the actors, and demonstrates how understanding the intended irony in a phrase or speech totally changes the perception of the character speaking."

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 8
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1982, 51 minutes
Featured Speakers: Sir Ben Kingsley, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, John Barton, Patrick Stewart, Tony Church, Sheila Hancock, Michael Pennington, Sir Donald Sinden, Lisa Harrow, Mike Gwilym, Susan Fleetwood
"To illustrate how Hamlet's advice to the players expresses Shakespeare's direction that actors be natural and not false or grotesque, Barton guides members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in a discussion and dramatization of Shakespeare's use of passion and coolness. They demonstrate deliberate and striking inconsistencies in Shakespeare's characters; how Shakespeare's language can affect an audience; and the balancing of heightened language, naturalistic performance, emotion and intellect."

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 9
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1982, 52 minutes
Featured Speakers: John Barton, Dame Judi Dench, Norman Rodway, Richard Pasco, Michael Williams
"Concentrating on a scene from the Twelfth night, John Barton guides members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in a discussion and reading of the lines in search of Shakespeare's clues to character, language, and staging. The program analyzes text and subtext, how the verse itself is a clue to the meaning, the effect of monosyllabic lines, short lines, missing beats and pauses, and Shakespeare's verse rhythm."

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 10
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1982, 50 minutes
Featured Speakers: David Suchet, John Barton, Patrick Stewart
"Under John Barton's direction, two members of the Royal Shakespeare Company explore Shakespeare's character Shylock to demonstrate how Shakespeare develops a character and the multiplicity of ways in which his characters can be understood. Given the same text from The merchant of Venice and the same direction, the different readings of the part demonstrate the infinite variety of Shakespeare's work."

Royal Shakespeare Company Workshop, Volume 11
Films For The Humanities & Sciences, 1982, 52 minutes
Featured Speakers: Sir Ben Kingsley, David Suchet, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, John Barton, Henry Ainley, Ian McKellen, Alan Howard, Sir Donald Sinden, Lisa Harrow
"Presenter John Barton leads members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in a discussion of Shakespeare's use of poetry and hidden poetry in seemingly unpoetic lines. Barton and the actors demonstrate how polysyllables trip easily off the tongue, while monosyllabic lines and words are packed with thoughts and feelings. They also explore Shakespeare's use of the words 'time' and 'death,' along with contrast and sudden changes that occur."