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Shakespeare Research   Tags: english_literature, shakespeare  

Last Updated: May 24, 2013 URL: http://subjectguides.lib.neu.edu/shakespeare Print Guide RSS UpdatesEmail AlertsShareThis

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EndNote and RefWorks

Two very powerful programs that let you save citations, insert those citations into your paper, and automatically create a works cited at the end. Provided by the university to all members of the NU community.

  • EndNote
    Download the software and get basic tips on using it.
  • RefWorks
    Download the software and get basic tips on using it.
 

Citation Styles for Literature

Always check with your professor to see if there is a required style for your paper. You must properly cite your sources to avoid plagiarism.

In general, researchers in English and American literature use the citation style in the Modern Language Association (MLA) Style Guide or the Notes-Bibliography version of the Chicago Manual of Style. We have both citation manuals here in the library; alternatively, see the web summaries below.

  • MLA Style
    An excellent online summary from authors Diana Hacker and Barbara Fister. Use the menus to find the specific style for your in-text citation or Works Cited.
  • MLA Update 2009
    From the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University.
  • Chicago Style
    Also commonly used in some humanities areas -- again, always check with your professor for her or his preferred style.
 

Welcome

This page provides quick access to resources for research on Shakespeare at Snell Library. If you need help please contact the Reference Desk, or contact me to make an appointment for a consultation.

 

Student Suggestions

Selected and annotated by undergraduate students in ENGL 1600, Fall 2011.

  • Absolute Shakespeare
    This website has everything you need to know about Shakespeare. It contains his plays, sonnets, poems, famous quotes, pictures, summaries of works, etc. It is especially useful since everything you need ) is in one spot for you to access.
  • Absolute Shakespeare Glossary
    This was found when I was searching a few words that I was unsure of, and weren’t explained in the margins. This is a very useful tool, and also provides information about Shakespeare’s life and times. It also consists of all of the plays, sonnets, pictures, bard facts, authorship debate, and even quizzes.
  • Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary
    Clicking on a word or letter brings the user to a page that defines the word or letter and lists which play or plays it was used in. It gives the direct act, scene and line from the play it was used in and, if applicable, pieces of the quotation. This website can be used not only as a resource for understanding the meaning of words unknown to a reader of Shakespeare, but also for locating quotations involving specific words.
  • An Encapsulated Biography
    The website gives an overview of all of Shakespeare.
  • ASL Shakespeare Project
    Fantastic, features the first full translation and performance of a Shakespeare play into ASL, as well as other resources about Shakespeare’s life and theater in the Elizabethan era. I was really fascinated by all the information about the translation process and the challenges the project faced in communicating the nuances of Shakespearean language into ASL. Really useful resource for anyone researching the translation of Shakespeare to different languages or performance in ASL
  • Shakespearean Study
  • Horace Howard Furness Shakespeare Collection
    The website contains scanned books and imagesfrom the Horace Howard Furness Collection at UPenn. They include quartos and folios of his plays, theatrical production and criticism. I would use this if I needed a primary source relating to shakespeare and if I wanted to look at books from the time period. It's basically like going to the rare book department on your computer.
  • Open Shakespeare
    I was interested in finding a website that allowed researchers to read comments and ideas from all those who can access the site. Here you can find the complete Shakespearean works and add your own annotations for yourself or for the public and read those of other people. Interesting statistics about the works and a multitude of literary criticisms. Allows readers to look at comparisons of different editions of text. The site’s slogan sums it up well: “The marriage of text and technology
  • Open Source Shakespeare
    This site contains the 1864 Globe Edition of Shakespeare's complete works as well as a comprehensive guide to characters and their lines in each play. It's really neat that they break each play down by character as well as scene, so you can easily go back and find a specific line by a certain character.
  • The Oxford Shakespeare
    text of all of Shakespeare's plays, as well as the option to keyword search for themes or specific text found within the plays or sonnets. It also offers bibliographic information for all of the online texts, and a variety of writings about Shakespeare's work, largely written by renowned professors who contributed to Oxford collections. These writings even branch out beyond Shakespeare and his work, offering a socio-historical context that isn't always evident in the plays themselves.
  • Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
    Focuses primarily on the man behind the play, with visits to intriguing locations like Shakespeare’s childhood home. Includes many blogs where experts and newcomers alike discuss the poet’s personal life along with discussion of his text. Many interesting videos that answer such questions as “How do we know when Shakespeare was born?”, plus highlights of Shakespeare relics. Allows readers to understand ‘Shakespeare’ on a level that I think is unobtainable without delving into his pe
  • The Shakespeare Authorship Page
    While not very official-looking, the site has a vast amount of sourcing for its information. It records various writers and the arguments that place them as the authors of "Shakespeare's" works. Kathman and Ross obviously lean toward Shakespeare himself as the author, but they raise many of the questions one should consider in thinking about authorship, and the site also links to a collection of Shakespeare's plays online. Interesting and well thought-out.
  • Shakespeare Art Museum
    The work of one artist, Hannah Tompkins, who created modern paintings based on Shakespeare. Pictures of much of Hannah’s work, detailed descriptions of the work and how she interpreted the text using many direct quotes. It is informative to view other people’s understanding of Shakespeare’s plays, and can strengthen or call into question one’s own beliefs. Changing art as performance and the written word into something stationary and yet sometimes more extreme is an interesting concep
  • Shakespeare Insults Dictionary
    Really fun and a different take on most dictionaries designed to help the reader understand what is being said. Most insults are rather bizarre and having a dictionary to decipher these would be helpful as well. Anyone using the dictionary would be able to use this resource to 1) understand the insults effectively and 2) even use it to help them create their own for a creative writing assignment etc. If the dictionary is not found up to snuff, also journey over to the main site for more.
  • Shakespeare Online
    Complete text of each of Shakespeare's plays, as well as analyses for each and study guides for a lot of them. It has related essays and other online sources for each as well. It has some of his sonnets, and an extensive biography section dedicated to his life, which is really interesting. I think pretty much any information you need on anything Shakespeare can be found either on this site or on one of the links to other sites here. It's an invaluable resource.
  • Shakespeare Resource Center
    The website contains information on Shakespeare's life, his works, his language, the Globe, Elizabethan theater, and England at that time. It seems like a great online resource for just about anything Shakespeare-related.
  • Shakespeare Studies
    The journal is published annually and contains essays, studies and reviews that pertain to Shakespeare and the modern day. One article that I read connected the recent Disney movie Bolt with Shakespeare's plays. This journal would be useful for learning about current research on Shakespeare and his contemporaries, as well as for learning about the historical context of Shakespeare and his works.
  • Shakespeare Study Guide
    The website links users to plot summaries and analyses of every play/poem. Other contents include guides to understanding theater in the time of Shakespeare, a biography of Shakespeare, and information about the writing and publishing process in the time of Shakespeare. The website provides in depth studies and links, creating a broad spectrum of studying Shakespeare.
  • Shakespeare Quarterly
    An academic journal about anything and everything Shakespeare related. As I explored the website I looked at some of the past issues of the journal which contained interesting articles about a myriad of topics. The Fall 2011 issues wrote about an adaptation of Macbeth which was being done in a maximum security prison in Ireland and the Summer 2011 issue was entirely devoted to articles pertaining to Hamlet.
  • Shakespeare Quartos Archive
    A pilot website that is currently being developed for copies of Shakespeare’s works created before 1642. A link to viewing some quartos of Shakespeare led me to this pilot site. It’s currently a collection of 32 copies of the five earliest editions of Hamlet, as held by an affiliation of libraries in the United States and Europe, including The British Library. Currently this site only has editions of Hamlet, but it is most likely to expand to hold other volumes of other plays.
  • Shakespeare's Sonnets
    The website is quite unique in it deals with all of Shakespeare's work. However I posted the article specifically about deciphering his Sonnets. I feel like amongst our classmates many over look Shaeskpeare's Sonnets. And I hope that the in depth discussions and analysis the website provides is enough for at least an introductory level to undertsnading Shakespeare's Sonnets. It covers every single Sonnet he wrote.
  • Shakespeare's Words
    This website is a text mining glossary based on a print book as a means to pick out specific words as they appear through Shakespeare's catalog, helping to chart changes through time and usage. Useful and fun that might aid in helping broaden understanding of language in Shakespeare's texts.
  • William Shakespeare
    This site can be used to find vocabulary words, information on the Elizabethan era, read about the problem of Shakespeare's identity, the Bubonic Plague, etc. It is a general resource for Shakespeare's time and works.
  • William Shakespeare Resources, No Sweat Shakespeare
    This website is a great resource for finding out pretty much anything you need to know regarding Shakespeare. It is organized into tabs on the page that say, “Shakespeare Sonnets, Shakespeare Quotes, Modern Ebooks” etc. I highly recommend taking a look at this website for any of your Shakespeare needs.
  • Words Invented
    This website demonstrates many of the words Shakespeare 'invented' and when he used them and in what context of the each play or source. I found it by searching for Shakespearean words in our reference catalogue's websites. It's very interesting to see where many of the words came from that we use so often today.

Contact Me

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Amanda Rust
Contact Info
270 Snell Library / 617-373-8548
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Subjects:
English Literature, American Literature, Theatre
Background and Experience:
At Northeastern since fall of 2006, previously at Bunker Hill Community College, Harvard University, and University of Florida libraries.
Education:
Simmons College, University of Florida.
Associations:
American Library Association.
Association of College and Research Libraries.
 

Attribution

This guide was developed on the foundation of many other excellent library guides, including guides at New York University, Loyola University, and the Catholic University of America.

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