Freshman Preceptorial: Predicaments of Action & Judgment

Shakespeare in Context:
Library and Internet Resources on Hamlet and Its Times

Schaffer Library

Action Menu:

Home Pages:

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Overviews of Hamlet

Boyce, Charles.
Shakespeare A–Z: the essential reference to his plays, his poems, his life and times, and more. Mercea Elide, editor in chief. New York, Oxford: Facts On File, 1990.

This valuable resource for factual information on Shakespeare, his work, and his times, also includes a long literary biography of the dramatist, plus an extensive interpretation of Hamlet with a scene-by-scene synopsis, a commentary, and a theatrical history of its performance.

CALL NUMBER: Ref PR 2892 .B69 1990

Dictionary of Literary Biography—Volume 62: Elizabethan Dramatists. Edited by Fredson Bowers. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1987.

Volume 62: Elizabethan Dramatists of the DLB presents a major literary biography on Shakespeare, along with reproductions of playbills, portraits, and other primary source material. This volume also contains an Appendix with an essay on "The Theater in Shakespeare's Time."

CALL NUMBER: Ref PS 221 .D510 Vol. 62

"Hamlet." EncyclopÊdia Britannica Online. [ Online ] Available: http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=3184&sctn=1 [Accessed 5 April 2001].

Available to members of the Union community via EncyclopÊdia Britannica Online, this article summarizes the central narrative of the play and examines several of the main characters. The online article also includes an audio file of Johnston Forbes-Robertson reading "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I" and a link to the following EncyclopÊdia Britannica Online article:

• Shakespeare, William

Subject Dictionaries

Martin, Michael Rheta.
The Concise Encyclopedic Guide to Shakespeare. By Michael Rheta Martin and Richard C. Harrier. New York: Horizon Press, 1971.

CALL NUMBER: Ref PR 2892 .M39

Bibliographies and Research Guides

Shakespeare Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1984—

Extended excerpts from critical interpretations and commentaries on Hamlet appear in Volume 1 and in Volume 35 (which focuses on the theme of madness). Entries include an introductory essay and an annotated bibliography of sources for further reading.

CALL NUMBER: Ref PR 2965 .S43 1984

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Shakespeare in Context

British Writers. Ed. by Ian Scott-Kilver. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1979.

The article by Stanley Wells on "William Shakespeare" discusses the poet's life, his intellectual and theatrical background, early histories, comedies, and tragedies, the poems, later histories and major tragedies, the unromantic comedies and later tragedies (including Hamlet), Shakespeare and Fletcher, Shakespeare's publication and performance history, and finally, his critics. There are five pages of bibliographic refences.

CALL NUMBER: Ref PR 85 .B688 Vol. 1

"Elizabethan literature." EncyclopÊdia Britannica Online. [ Online ] Available: <http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?idxref=388042> [Accessed 10 April 2001].

"English literature." EncyclopÊdia Britannica Online. [ Online ] Available: <http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=108552&sctn=19> [Accessed 10 April 2001].

Shakespeare within the context of English literature. Available to members of the Union community via EncyclopÊdia Britannica Online.

"Shakespeare, William." EncyclopÊdia Britannica Online. [ Online ] Available: <http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=117520&sctn=1> [Accessed 5 April 2001].

An overview of Shakespeare, poet and dramatist. Available to members of the Union community via EncyclopÊdia Britannica Online.

SOURCES OF RESEARCH MATERIALS: BOOKS

Books -- Online Catalog

The Online Catalog is a computerized listing of this library's materials--books, government documents, and sound recordings.

Click on any of the following to choose a method of searching:

Keyword Searching

The Online Catalog may also be searched by keyword using combinations of terms for more precise search results.

Consult Schaffer Library Web Catalog Help and Search Hints for more details.

Link to a more extensive listing of subject headings on Shakespeare and Hamlet.

THE VIRTUAL LIBRARY

Relevant World-Wide Web Sites for
Understanding the Context for Hamlet

• Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet

"This site attempts two things: To be a complete annotated guide to the scholarly Shakespeare resources available on Internet...To present new Shakespeare material unavailable elsewhere on the Internet." Maintained by Terry A. Gray.

Adddress: http://daphne.palomar.edu/Shakespeare

• Online Internet Criticism Collection: William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

Includes external links to scholarly critical articles, a biographical site, and a variety of other Internet resources on a wide range of Shakespearian subjects. There are also links pages to pages on "British: 1500-1700 Century literature" and individual Shakespeare plays within the ILP Online Literary Criticism Collection.

Adddress: http://www.ipl.org/cgi-bin/ref/litcrit/litcrit.out.pl?au=sha-9

• The Shakespeare Authorship Page: Dedicated to the Proposition that Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare

Critically examines claims that Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems published under Shakespeare's name. Argues that Shakespeare is truly the author of the works. Maintained by Dave Kathman and Terry Ross. Features include: Introduction -- Critically Examining Oxfordian Claims -- The Spelling and Pronunciation of Shakespeare's Name -- Shakespeare's Stratford Monument -- Dating The Tempest -- The Oxfordian Hamlet -- Puttenham on Oxford -- Oxford the Poet : Oxford's Literary Reputation ; Shakespeare, Oxford, and Verbal Parallels ; Was the Earl of Oxford the True Shakespeare? ; The Verse Forms of Shakespeare and Oxford -- The Survival of Manuscripts -- Reviews : Shakespeare IN FACT ; This Star of England ; Why I'm Not an Oxfordian -- The Code That Failed -- Funeral Elegy -- Bardlinks Elsewhere on the Web.

Adddress: http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/will.html

• The Shakespeare Resource Center

Presents a Web site directory and online resource on English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616), compiled by J. M. Pressley. Includes a biography, information on the authorship debate, a description of the Globe Theater, and other information.

Adddress: http://www.bardweb.net/index.html

SOURCES OF RESEARCH MATERIALS: PERIODICALS DATABASES

Scholarly periodical databases give a researcher access to articles on specific subjects that have appeared in variety of periodicals. Such databases may cover a broad area of study the way Humanities Abstracts and Arts and Humanities Search do. Others, such as MLA Bibliography, focus more sharply. Most journal articles listed are written by scholars and aimed at other researchers in that field, making them particularly important research sources. Searching a database will give the researcher the bibliographic citation needed to identify and locate a specific work on a topic: author, title of article, journal title, volume and issue number, date, and pages. An abstract briefly summarizes an article's contents.

Some online databases—EBSCOhost, JSTOR, H.W. Wilson Select Full Text in FirstSearch, and ProQuest Direct—include the full text of at least some of the articles online. Databases are accessible via the Library's Electronic Resources Page.

Relevant online databases for research on The Hamlet and its context include:

• EBSCOhost
• JSTOR
• ProQuest Direct

OCLC FirstSearch Databases:

• Arts and Humanities Search — citation database
• Humanities Abstracts — includes philosophy, history, culture
• MLA Bibliography
• Wilson Select Full-Text
• WorldCat — books and other library materials

Last revised on April 10, 2001