Librarian
Shakespeare Resources
To find resources on Shakespeare,
- Use a General Search of our collection. You can find books, videos, articles, and more. Books generally appear toward the top of the results list.
- Search specifically for works of literature.
- Search for literary criticism.
- Or try a specialized journal database to find scholarly articles.
Search Tip
Include a play, character, or theme of interest. For example:
- Shakespeare masculinity
- Shakespeare film
- Hamlet gender
Browse the reference sources below to find author biographies, work summaries, overviews of literature topics, and more.
Websites & Databases
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Shakespeare in FilmThis link takes you to the filmed plays of William Shakespeare that are contained in Films on Demand. Look on the right side of the page for the full list of films. Those from the Globe Theatre are listed first — that's the London performing space that is a reconstruction of Shakespeare's own 1599 theater.
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Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowStream educational films about Shakespeare and his work, including critical guides for Macbeth, Hamlet, and other plays. You can also find full play productions, and more. Search tips: Choose the “advanced search” option, put Shakespeare in the search box, and change the Formats menu to “Search By Titles.”
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Open Source Shakespeare – George Mason UniversityWith the full texts of Shakespeare's plays, sonnets, and poems, this site is particularly useful for searching individual plays or all the works at once. You can also see an exhaustive character list and play statistics.
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Folger Digital TextsThe Folger Shakespeare Library is one of the largest and best-known Shakespeare collections in the world. This site will eventually hold all the texts of all of Shakespeare's plays and poems, starting in 2012 with the most-taught plays. Synopses of the plays and character descriptions are also included.
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Shakespeare Across the DisciplinesClick on this orderly sampling to find Shakespearean interpretation across 32 academic disciplines, from African American Studies to Economics to Women's Studies. Assembled by a Harvard writing expert, Jeffrey R. Wilson, who notes: "Even if not universal, Shakespeare is versatile. His art has been enjoyed and experienced by many different people in many ways in many different times."
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Shakespeare and the Four HumorsThe history of medicine blended with Shakespearean insight! In Shakespeare's time, doctors and poets drew on the now-discredited medical theory that four bodily fluids (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) were at the root of both physical health and personality traits. This collaborative exhibit between the National Library of Medicine and Folger Shakespeare Library shows primary-source images and uses them to analyze the protagonists of three Shakespeare plays: Kate and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, Ophelia in Hamlet, and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.
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Global ShakespearesThis site focuses on William Shakespeare as an international figure, bringing together video, articles, and academic commentary from around the world. A collaborative open-access project based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Print Reference Sources
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Shakespeares after Shakespeare: An Encyclopedia of the Bard in Mass Media and Popular Culture
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Call Number: Reference PR2880.A1 S48 2007 v.1–2Looking for Shakespeare adaptations? Find summaries and commentary on spin-offs of and references to his work in literature, film, television, radio, music, cartoons, and comics. -
Shakespeare's Language: A Glossary of Unfamiliar Words in His Plays and Poems
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Call Number: Reference PR2892 .S447 2008bFind the meaning of unfamiliar Shakespearean words and expressions, with contextual quotes from the plays. Also see the Oxford English Dictionary online. -
Shakespeare Survey : A Sixty-Year Cumulative Index
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Call Number: Reference PR2888 .C3 Index 2009ISBN: 9780521517010Publication Date: 2009Published in Shakespeare Survey’s 60th year, this single-volume cumulative index enables the reader to find references across six decades -- a rich and continuing history of Shakespeare studies that gives the contexts, performances, meanings and possibilities of his works. -
Uncanny Fidelity
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ISBN: 9780817394752Publication Date: 2023-12-19How the study of Shakespeare's legacy, specifically in film and television, can radically challenge what we consider to be authentically Shakespearean In the field of adaptation studies today, the idea of reading an adapted text as "faithful" or "unfaithful" to its original source strikes many scholars as too simplistic, too conservative, and too moralizing. In Uncanny Fidelity: Recognizing Shakespeare in Twenty-First Century Film and Television, James Newlin challenges these critical orthodoxies. Instead, recognizing how a film or television series closely recalls Shakespeare's drama encourages an interrogation of what we consider to be "Shakespeare" in the first place.
