English & Creative Writing

The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare is the most comprehensive reference work available on Shakespeare's life, times, works, and his 400-year global legacy. In addition to the authoritative A-Z entries, it includes nearly 100 illustrations, a chronology, a guide to further reading, a thematiccontents list, and special feature entries on each of Shakespeare's works. Tying in with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, this much-loved Companion has been revised and updated, reflecting developments and discoveries made in recent years and to cover the performance, interpretation,and the influence of Shakespeare's works up to the present day.First published in 2001, the online edition was revised in 2011, with updates to over 200 entries plus 16 new entries. These online updates appear in print for the first time in this second edition, along with a further 35,000 new and revised words. These include more than 80 new entries, rangingfrom important performers, directors, and scholars (such as Lucy Bailey, Samuel West, and Alfredo Michel Modenessi), to topics as diverse as Shakespeare in the digital age and the ubiquity of plants in Shakespeare's works, to the interpretation of Shakespeare globally, from Finland to Iraq. To makeinformation on Shakespeare's major works easier to find, the feature entries have been grouped and placed in a centre section (fully cross-referenced from the A-Z). The thematic listing of entries - described in the press as 'an invaluable panorama of the contents' - has been updated to include allof the new entries. This edition contains a preface written by much-lauded Shakespearian actor Simon Russell Beale.Full of both entertaining trivia and scholarly detail, this authoritative Companion will delight the browser and reward students, academics, as well as anyone wanting to know more about Shakespeare.

This concise, illustrated dictionary of Shakespeariana, compiled by one of the best-known authorities on his works, provides ready access to a mass of up-to-date material concerning Shakespeare and his cultural heritage in Britain and overseas.Alphabetically arranged entries guide the reader to a wealth of information on Shakespeare's life and times, on the sources and early publication of his works, on their performance history on stage and screen, on actors and writers especially associated with them, on operas and other musical worksderiving from them, on theatres, editions, international Shakespeare organizations - in short, on all aspects of Shakespearian interest. The volume is complemented by a series of striking pronouncements about Shakespeare over the ages, by tables providing interesting facts about the plays, and by auseful guide to further reading.Entries on the plays and the major charactersShakespeare's life and his contemporariesActors - from Edmund Kean and Ellen Terry to Peter O'Toole and Kenneth BranaghTheatres - including the new Globe in LondonDirectors - Trevor Nunn, Terry Hands, and Adrian NobleBox features with passages about Shakespeare, from authors including Jane Austen, Dr Johnson, and Bernard LevinIllustrations include theatres, portraits of Shakespeare, and famous documents bearing his signature.

Written by a team of leading international scholars, this Companion is designed to illuminate Shakespeare's works through discussion of the key topics of Shakespeare studies. Twenty-one essays provide lively and authoritative approaches to recent scholarship and criticism for readers keen to expand their knowledge and appreciation of Shakespeare. The book contains stimulating chapters on traditional topics such as Shakespeare's biography and the transmission of his texts. Individual readings of the plays are given in the context of genre as well as through the cultural and historical perspectives of race, sexuality and gender, and politics and religion. Essays on performance survey the latest digital media as well as stage and film. Throughout the volume, contributors discuss Shakespeare in a global as well as a national context, a dramatist with a long and constantly mutating history of reception and performance.