The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198117353 ISBN 13: 9780198117353

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2001

Synopsis

The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare is the most comprehensive reference work yet produced about Shakespeare's works, times, life, and afterlives. From the conjectured identity of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets to the misprints in the First Folio, from Shakespeare's favourite figures of speech to the staging of Othello in South Africa, a team of internationally renowned scholars provides a lucid, stimulating, and authoritative guide to the plays, the poems, and their interpretation around the world over the last four centuries. Bringing its readers up to date not only with the latest in Shakespearian scholarship and controversy but with the plays' most recent incarnations on stage, on film, and in international popular culture, this is the perfect companion to Shakespeare's works, covering everything from Aaron and act divisions to Zeffirelli and Zuccaro, and from Shakespeare in schools to Shakespeare in Love.

About this title

Review:

From Ariel and anti-theatrical polemic to Willow Song, Yorrick and Zeffirelli, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare is a remarkably eclectic reference book. "Setobos is a deity or demon worshipped by Sycorax in The Tempest," runs one entry; "Lighting--Open air playhouses used available daylight supplemented by cresset-lights (oil-soaked rope burning in a metal basket) in the early evening," begins another. The writing style is commendably unpretentious.

Most of the 540 pages are given over to alphabetic listing of characters and locations in the plays, actors, directors, theatre managers and critics from the late 16th century until the present. Then there are, among other things, technical terms to do with the theatre or with language and names such as Wagner, Zoffany, Arnold, Marlowe, whose work connects in any way with Shakespeare. There is no index but the book opens with a detailed account of the plays' dramatis personae, themes and associated names; and it ends with maps, a Royal family tree to help you pick your way through the history plays and a timeline giving a chronology of Shakespeare's life and works (and their reception). There are also suggestions for further reading. Each play gets several pages at the appropriate point in the alphabetical arrangement. The commentary includes a synopsis, textual information and some facts on the play's sources, along with an account of its stage and critical history and artistic features. The section about published editions and criticism of each play is useful too. Apocryphal plays such as The Merry Devil of Edmonton are mentioned more briefly.

The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare is an attractive book--with its A4 format, shiny paper and plenty of pictures--to browse through as well as use as a reference. --Susan Elkin

Review:

a book library commitees ought to want -- Times Literary Supplement, September 21, 2001

About this edition

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0198117353
• ISBN 13: 9780198117353
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 576
• Editor: Dobson Michael