Research Guides: Shakespeare: Brief Reference

Brief Reference

A Dictionary of Shakespeare.
By Stanley Wells.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
This dictionary brings together current information about Shakespeare, from his influence at the time he was writing to his impact since then on readers, theatre-goers and writers. Besides entries on the plays, their major characters, Shakespeare's life, and his contemporaries, the Dictionary provides further entries on theatres, directors, and actors such as Edmund Kean and Peter O'Toole. In addition, this source contains comments on Shakespeare by later authors such as Jane Austen and Samuel Johnson.
An A-Z Guide to Shakespeare.
By Stanley Wells.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Shakespeare Name and Place Dictionary.
By J. Madison Davis & A. Daniel Frankforter.
New York: Routledge, 1995.
Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Shakespeare.
Cham: Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Textual Studies.
Edited by Lukas Erne.
London: Arden Shakespeare, 2020.
Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Language.
Edited by Lynne Magnusson and David Schalkwyk.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Elsevier’s Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery.
By Ad de Vries & Arthur de Vries.
Leiden: Brill, 2004.
Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance.
By Peter Kirwan & Kathryn Prince.
London: Arden Shakespeare, 2021.
Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and War.
Edited by David Loewenstein & Paul Stevens.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Screen.
Edited by Russell Jackson.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Social Justice.
Edited by David Ruiter.
London: Bloomsbury, 2020.
Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Interface.
Edited by Clifford Werier and Paul Budra.
London: Routledge, 2023.
Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race.
Edited by Ayanna Thompson.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
The Reader’s Encyclopedia of Shakespeare.
Edited by Oscar James Campbell and Edward G. Quinn.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966.
This one-volume collection of thorough, alphabetically arranged entries comes with an assortment of useful appendices unavailable in Shakespeare A-Z, including a Chronology of Events Related to the Life and Works of William Shakespeare; a Genealogical Table of the Houses of York and Lancaster; and A Selected Bibliography containing criticism of Shakespeare’s works. Typical entries include critics (Eliot, T.S.), plays (Henry IV, Part Two: Selected Criticism), technical terms (stage imagery), contemporaries (Marlowe, Christopher) and literary terms (rhetoric). The entries in this encyclopedia are more substantial than in Shakespeare A-Z.
Shakespeare A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Plays, His Poems, His Life and Times, and More.
Edited by Charles Boyce.
New York: Facts on File Publications, 1990.
More extensive and up to date but less thorough than the Reader’s Encyclopedia, Shakespeare A to Z provides a wide range of brief alphabetically-arranged articles on such topics as plays (with plot summaries), character names, actors, scholars, place-names, and Shakespeare’s contemporaries. The work is cross-referenced and includes a list of suggested readings at the back.
Oxford Companion to Shakespeare.
Edited by Michael Dobson, Stanley Wells, Will Sharpe, and Erin Sullivan. 2nd ed.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
[For print version locations see UofT Catalogue]
With substantial entries shored up with bibliographies, this reference guide includes synopses along with notes about Shakespeare’s sources, the original text, and the play’s stage history. Besides entries on the plays, the Companion contains articles on key terms (Jacobean tragedy), themes (death), critics (Hazlitt), and critical approaches (Marxist).

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