This type of information is written by researchers and experts in their field. It could include:
You can find books and articles by searching Library Search, but you can also try using the following resources to find criticism, commentary, discussion and review of Shakespeare's works:
See below for further information on how to use these resources.
The MLA has developed an online course to teach students how to use the MLA International Bibliography.
There are five modules in the course. The fifth module is 'Literary topics' which provides guidance on performing searches on specific literary works and authors as well as on broad topics.
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The MLA provide short tutorial videos to help you use the resource.
There are more tutorials available at https://www.mla.org/Publications/MLA-International-Bibliography/Tutorial-Videos
We have access to several Cambridge Companion titles relating to Shakespeare, including the following:
See the following tab for information on how to find materials relating to Shakespeare.
Select Browse all topics, and find Shakespeare in the list
You can then view a list of subtopics relating to Shakespeare:
Alternatively, search across all of Gale Literature Criticism:
You can also run an advanced search for materials by or about Shakespeare.
Add more details to the search, e.g. a particular work, or additional keywords, to get more specific results.
On the search results page you can choose which type of material to view by clicking on the different headings; criticism, biographies, overviews, etc.
You can refine your search further using the filter options:
It has been designed as the foremost platform for conducting Literary Research and incorporates Literature Online.
It contains 3 million literature citations from thousands of journals, monographs, dissertations, and more than 500,000 primary works – including rare and obscure texts, multiple versions, and non-traditional sources like comics, theatre performances, and author readings.
Enter your terms into the search box, e.g. romanticism AND byron.
Your results are displayed divided into content type.
For example, if you would like to locate the works of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Select Author Pages option from above the search box
Enter Geoffrey Chaucer in the search box this should give search options as shown below. Select "Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400" or select the Go Directly to option.
The Author Pages provides a short biography of the author, links to the primary texts, recent criticism, criticism over time and reference works.
For example, you are searching for texts related to war and death that were published between WW1 and WW2.
The Texts list of results page will be displayed, listing the author, the title of the work containing the selected words and the line(s) containing the words.
For example, you are looking for occurrences of the word "jealousy" Literature Online will include old spellings as well for many keyword.
You can see the variants of Jealousy highlighted below:
For example, you are searching for reference material on the works of Scott Fitzgerald.
The results list will display all relevant materials.
For example, you would like to hear Jayne Cortez reading her own works.
Or, you would like to listen to a Shakespearean Play.
Here you can listen to the full play or select the relevant act.
For example, you are interested in learning more about poet Ezra Pound and hope to locate some of his poems.
JSTOR is a valuable research resource for secondary resources. You can use it to search and find the full text of published books and journal articles.
Use the How to Search JSTOR LibGuide for an introduction to the service or take a look at JSTOR's Vimeo channel for educational and instructional videos.
Enter your search
You can use the Basic search box that appears at login.
Alternatively, select the Advanced Search option for additional options.
The example below shows a basic search for book and article content that includes reference to marlowe and shakespeare and ambiguity
View your search results
You can refine your results if you find too many as a result of your initial search.
You may find it useful to select the Show Snippets option. This will highlight the appearance of your search terms:
Click on the title of the journal article/book/book chapter to view the item. You can also download the item.
You can also see how many times your search terms appear across the article and link through to the pages where the terms appear, via the View Results link.
Understanding Shakespeare is a collaborative project between JSTOR Labs and the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Click next to any line of text in a Shakespeare play, and relevant articles from the JSTOR archive immediately load.
Explore the collection here.
Here is an example from Richard III. There are 17 articles within JSTOR with reference to the first line of the play:
The Text Analyzer is another useful research tool:
Find out more about it here, and this brief introductory video will give you an overview of the tool.
Included in the World Shakespeare Bibliography:
Shakespeare Survey is a yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production.
Each volume is devoted to a theme, or play, or group of plays; each also contains a section of reviews of that year's textual and critical studies, and of the year's major British performances.
The Bloomsbury Shakespeare archive combines research monographs with student guides and the entire 18-volume reference series Great Shakespeareans.
The Arden Critical Companions series covers themes such as Shakespeare and music, comedy, the law, and Renaissance politics, while the Continuum Shakespeare Dictionaries covers Shakespeare's Non-standard English, class and society, and the language of politics and economics in his works.
Please note that this collection contains critical and contextual works from the Arden series: the play texts themselves are available on from Drama Online.
University of Exeter LibGuide is licensed under CC BY 4.0
