Digital Encyclopedias and Reference Sources
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
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An illustrated collection of 60,000 biographies of men and women who shaped all aspects of Britain's history, up to the present.
- An A-Z Guide to Shakespeare (2013) by Stanley Wells
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"Compiled by one of the best-known authorities on Shakespeare's works, this online-only dictionary offers up-to-date information on all aspects of Shakespeare in his own time and on his impact and influence on later ages. It includes entries on the plays and the major characters, on Shakespeare's life and his contemporaries, on actors from Richard Burbage to Judi Dench, on theatres and directors, plus comments on Shakespeare by later authors such as Jane Austen, Dr Johnson, and Bernard Levin." - The Oxford companion to Shakespeare (2015) edited by Michael Dobson, Stanley Wells, Will Sharpe, and Erin Sullivan
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"From the conjectured identity of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets to the misprints in the First Folio, from Shakespeare's favourite figures of speech to the staging of Othello in South Africa, a team of 100 internationally renowned scholars provides a lucid, stimulating, and authoritative guide to Shakespeare's plays and poems, and their interpretation around the world over the last four centuries. Now revised and updated to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, this much-loved Companion reflects developments and discoveries made in recent years as well as the performance, interpretation, and influence of Shakespeare's works up to the present day." - The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation (2016) by David Crystal
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"This dictionary is the first comprehensive description of Shakespearean original pronunciation (OP), enabling practitioners to answer any queries about the pronunciation of individual words. It includes all the words in the First Folio, transcribed using IPA, and provides sound files as an additional aid to pronunciation. It details the main pronunciation evidence in the texts, notably all spelling variants and rhymes. An extensive introduction provides a full account of the aims, evidence, history, and current use of OP in relation to Shakespeare productions as well as other uses."
The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare by Call Number: PR2976 .C295 2016ISBN: 9781107057258Date: 2016The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare aims to replicate the expansive reach of Shakespeare's global reputation. In pursuit of that vision, this work is transhistorical, international and interdisciplinary. Volume 1, Shakespeare's World, 1500-1660, includes a comprehensive survey of the world in which Shakespeare and his contemporaries lived, while Volume 2, The World's Shakespeare, 1660-Present, examines what the world has made of Shakespeare as a cultural icon over the past four centuries. For each of the work's twenty-eight broad subject areas, ranging from translation to popular culture to performing arts, an overview is followed by a series of shorter essays taking up particular aspects of the subject at hand. Richly illustrated with more than three hundred images between the two volumes, this work brings the world, life and afterlife of Shakespeare to readers, from non-academic Shakespeare fans and students to theater professionals and Shakespeare scholars.
A Directory of Shakespeare in Performance, 1970-2005 by Call Number: PR3100 .O36 2007ISBN: 1403917345Date: 2007This directory contains detailed listings of all major English-language productions of Shakespeare plays on stage and screen from 1970 to the early twenty-first century. Two companion volumes dealing with productions from North America are also available.
All Things Shakespeare: an encyclopedia of Shakespeare's world by - This link opens in a new window
Call Number: Online ResourceISBN: 0313315035Date: 2002Falstaff loved sack. But who made the sack, and how? What did Hamlet know about poison? What did astrology mean to a couple of star-cross'd lovers back in the day? This unique encyclopedia compiles an enormous breadth of information about Shakespeare's world. More than 200 articles, most accompanied by vivid illustrations, combine rich historical detail with informative, insightful descriptions on the form and function of obscure and everyday items found in Shakespeare's works. Students can look up meanings of specific terms and concepts, and readers, researchers, actors, and audiences will enjoy the lively--and sometimes humorous--essays on myriad topics including anatomy, astronomy, clothing, currency, death, entertainment, hunting, medicine, mythology, tools, weapons, and much more.
A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns and Their Significance by Call Number: PR2997.P8 R82 1989ISBN: 0333488660Date: 1984This dictionary examines previously unnoted puns on the erotic attitudes and practices of the heterosexual and homosexual, the sexual deviant, and the impotent. It includes scatological puns in their usually bawdy contexts and ethnic puns, as sexually snide then as now. It stresses the need to read and hear Shakespeare word by word, giving full weight to each one and asking why the line is so and not otherwise. It heightens our awareness of Shakespeare's words, their Elizabethan connotations and their contemporary validity. For today's non-specialist audiences, the sexual puns are invitations to the fun of Shakespeare.
The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9781350110304Date: 2022-06-02The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation explores the dynamics of adapted Shakespeare across a range of literary genres and new media forms. This comprehensive reference and research resource maps the field of Shakespeare adaptation studies, identifying theories of adaptation, their application in practice and the methodologies that underpin them.
Reference Databases
- Reference Universe This link opens in a new window
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A good place to start, but note that it is an index to over 15 million articles in 11,000 subject encyclopedias and handbooks, both print and online and does not provide full-text articles. Instead, it will connect you to our catalog so you know where to find the appropriate encyclopedia, dictionary or other reference work. You will be linked to UCLA's holdings for any entries you find. It includes various Shakespeare reference sources like Shakespearean Scholarship :A Guide For Actors And Students, Religion In The Age Of Shakespeare, Family Life In The Age Of Shakespeare, and Shakespeare's World And Work :An Encyclopedia For Students. - Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
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Spans 25 different subject areas, bringing together 2 million digitized entries across Oxford University Press’s Dictionaries, Companions and Encyclopedias. UC subscription allows limited simultaneous users, so if you can't connect try again later.
- Cambridge Histories Online This link opens in a new window
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Full-text access to the complete 250-plus volumes of Cambridge Histories reference series. Provides political, economic, and social history, philosophy, and literature of selected countries and subjects. Continually updated with new volumes taken from the print series as soon as they become available. - Cambridge Companions Online This link opens in a new window
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Includes Campanions to Literature and Classics. Shakespeare-realted companions include The Cambridge Companion to English Poets, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Poetry, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Religion, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film, and more. - Digital Theatre+ This link opens in a new window
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DT+ includes streaming video of plays and performances produced on the contemporary British and American stage, interviews with professional practitioners and masterclasses on technique, study guides on classic works, and pedagogical guides for the classroom and theater production.
- Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new window
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Searchable database that provides access to the literary criticism collections Classical and Medieval Literary Criticism (CMLC), Contemporary Literary Criticism (CLC), Drama Criticism (DC), Literature Criticism from 1400-1800 (LC), Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism (NCLC), Poetry Criticism (PC), Shakespeare Criticism (SC), Short Story Criticism (SSC), and Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism (TCLC). - Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
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Biographies, bibliographies, and critical analysis of authors from every age and literary discipline. Covers more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers. Combines the core Gale Group literary databases: Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism, and Dictionary of Literary Biography. Complements Literature Criticism Online.
Variorum Editions
Variorums include a range of editions of Shakespeare's works with line by line annotations that track the various alterations made between editions, as well as critical notes about Shakespeare himself and his stage. In all, they help show the historical evolution of Shakespeare's works across editions.
The New Variorum Shakespeare, first edited by Horace Howard Furness, began with Romeo and Juliet in 1871 and amounted to 14 volumes prior to his death in 1912. This volumes include Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, The Winter's Tale, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will, and Love's Labour's Lost.
Furness's son, H.H Furness Jr. began editing the variorums after his father's death and produced v.oulmes 15-20: The Tragedy of Anthonie, and Cleopatra, The tragedy of Richard the Third, The tragedy of Julius Cæsar, The tragedy of Cymbeline, The life and death of King John, and The tragedy of Coriolanus.
In 1936, the Modern Language Association of America began publishing the series and completed volumes 21-27: Henry the Fourth, pt. 1, The phoenix and the turtle, Henry the Fourth pt. 2, The Sonnets, Troilus and Cressida, and The life and death of King Richard the Second.
UCLA Library Holdings
- A New Variorum Edition of ShakespeareCall Number: PR2753 .F98, YRLIncludes original 14 volumes as well as volumes 15- 20, edited by Furness's son H.H. Furness Jr., and volumes 21-27, issued under the sponsorship of the Modern Language Association of America.
- A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare (1963) byCall Number: PR2753 .F98 1963, Powell LibraryIncludes all volumes (plays) 1-14, with the texts of the plays, notes and commentary from the various editors and critics of Shakespeare's plays, and sections from these writers on such topics as costume, character analysis, and source of plots. Unabridged republications of the 1871 edition.
- Henry the Fourth, part one byCall Number: PR2753 .F98 v.21 suppl. 1977A new variorum edition of Shakespeare ; v. 21.
- Antony and Cleopatra byCall Number: PR2802.A2 S64 1990A new variorum edition of Shakespeare ; v. 15.
- The Life and Death of King Richard II byCall Number: PR2753 .F98 v.27 suppl.A new variorum edition of Shakespeare ; v. 27.
- The Winter's Tale byCall Number: PR2839.A2 T87 2005
- Twelfth night, or, What you will byCall Number: PR2753 .F98 v.13 suppl.
Online Holdings
- A New Variorum Edition of ShakespeareAccess to full views of volumes 2-19 and limited (search only) access for volumes 1 and 20-27 on Hathitrust.
English Reading Room Holdings
- Romeo and Juliet byCall Number: PR2831.A2 F5 1913
- Macbeth byCall Number: PR2750 .F23 1915
- Hamlet byCall Number: PR2807.A2 F98 1963
- Othello byCall Number: PR2829.A2 F98 1963
- The Winter's Tale byCall Number: PR2839.A2 P3 1964
Concordances
A concordance is an alphabetical list of all the words used in a book or a collection of works, that usually includes citations to where the word appears in the work(s).
Many of Shakespeare's works are available electronically, making it easy to look for the occurrence of specific words by using automatic search functions, but concordances can be particularly helpful since many also include some context for why or how the word was used in the work.
You can easily search for concordances in the UCLA catalog by searching "concordance Shakespeare" or "concordance [play title]" if you have a specific play you're interested in.
A few complete concordances of Shakespeare's works include:
- A Complete and Systematic Concordance to the Works of Shakespeare byCall Number: * PR2892 .S752, YRL Stacks Oversize
- A Concordance to Shakespeare's Poems : an index to every word therein contained byCall Number: PR2892 .F98 1902, SRLF
- The Complete Concordance to Shakespeare : being a verbal index to all the passages in the dramatic works of the poet. byCall Number: PR2892 .C55 1973, YRL