Table of Contents

I. Shakespeare's life and times
1: Stanley Wells: Why study Shakespeare?
2: Lois Potter: Shakespeare's life and career
3: Gabriel Egan: Theatre in London
4: Margaret Jane Kidnie: Shakespeare's audiences
5: Peter Thomson: Conventions of playwrighting
6: A. R. Braunmuller: Shakespeare's fellow dramatists
7: David Crystal: The language of Shakespeare
8: Russ McDonald: Shakespeare's verse
9: Carole Levin: The Society of Shakespeare's England
10: Joan Thirsk: Daily life in town and country
11: Martin Ingram: Love, sex, and marriage
12: Peter Lake: Changing attitudes towards religion
13: Lena Cowen Orlin: Ideas of order
14: Emily C. Bartels: Shakespeare's view of the world
II. Shakespearian Genres
15: Lena Cowen Orlin: Introduction
16: William C. Carroll: Romantic comedies
Reading: Twelfth Night, or What You Will
17: Phyllis Rackin: English history plays
Reading: Henry V
18: Linda Woodbridge: Tragedies
Reading: Macbeth
19: Alexander Leggatt: Roman plays
Reading: Julius Caesar
20: Reginald Foakes: Romances
Reading: The Winter's Tale
21: Paul Edmondson: Comical and tragical
Reading: Measure for Measure
22: Lynne Magnusson: Non-dramatic poetry
Reading: Shakespeare's sonnets
23: Alan Armstrong: Unfamiliar Shakespeare
III. Shakespeare criticism
24: Michael Taylor: The critical tradition
25: Michael D. Bristol: Humanist interpretations
Reading: King Lear
26: Christy Desmet: Character criticism
Reading: Hamlet
27: Leah Scragg: Source study
Reading: As You Like It
28: Inga-Stina Ewbank: Close reading
Reading: Richard III
29: Jean E. Howard: Feminist criticism
Reading: Othello
30: Bruce R. Smith: Studies in sexuality
Reading: The Merchant of Venice
31: Lynne Enterline: Psychoanalytic criticisms
Reading: Venus and Adonis
32: Jonathan Gil Harris: Materialist criticisms
Reading: Henry IV, Part One
33: Jyotsna Singh: Postcolonial criticisms
Reading: The Tempest
34: Kiernan Ryan: Deconstruction
Reading: Romeo and Juliet
35: Patricia Tatspaugh: Performance history: Shakespeare on the stage: 1660-2001
Reading: A Midsummer Night's Dream
36: Miriam Gilbert: Performance criticism
Reading: The Taming of the Shrew
IV. Shakespeare's afterlife
37: Terence Hawkes: Introduction
38: Laurie Maguire: Shakespeare published
39: Michael Billington: Shakespeare and the modern British theatre
40: Tony Howard: Shakespeare on film and video
41: David Kathman: The question of authorship
42: John Gross: Shakespeare's influence
43: Ton Hoenselaars: Shakespeare and translation
44: Georgiana Ziegler: Commemorating Shakespeare
45: Michael Best: Internet and CD-Rom resources

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About the Author

Stanley Wells is Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford, and was Professor of Shakespeare Studies, and Director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham from 1988 to 97, where he is now Emeritus Professor. He is the general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare, and co-editor of the Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works. With Peter Holland he is general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare Topics, and, with Michael
Dobson, he recently edited the best-selling Oxford Companion to Shakespeare.
Lena Cowen Orlin is Professor of English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Executive Director of the Shakespeare Association of America. Her publications include Material London, Ca. 1600 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), Elizabethan Households (University of Washington Press, 1995), and Private Matters and Public Cultures in Post-Reformation England (Cornell University Press, 1994).

Reviews

`At 700 pages and with over 40 well-known contributors, this breezeblock of a Guide is the quintessential college textbook. And a very good textbook it is. Coherently organised in four sections ... a wealth of information is presented at a reading level mainly that of an able college student who already has some acquaintance with Shakespeare.''
Rex Gibson, Around the Globe 1/9/03