Internet Resources
- The Complete Works of William ShakespeareWelcome to the Web's first edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. This site has offered Shakespeare's plays and poetry to the Internet community since 1993.
- Playwright, Actor & ShareholderShakespeare was involved in many aspects of London’s professional theatrical world. He was an actor, a playwright, and a shareholder in an acting company known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which became the King’s Men when James I became king in 1603. His plays were performed on professional stages owned by his company--first the Theatre, and then, after 1599, the Globe. (After a property dispute, the Theatre was disassembled and the timbers used to build the Globe). In 1609, his company began using its own indoor theater at Blackfriars. His plays were performed in many other spaces, including the royal court, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the Inns of Court, public buildings and outdoor spaces in the provinces, and private households.
- Shakespeare's PlaysShakespeare's plays portray recognisable people in situations that we can all relate to - including love, marriage, death, mourning, guilt, the need to make difficult choices, separation, reunion and reconciliation. They do so with great humanity, tolerance, and wisdom. They help us to understand what it is to be human, and to cope with the problems of being so.
- Shakespeare's PlaysDiscover the world of William Shakespeare's plays by delving into our past productions. Here you will find plot synopses, glimpses into our archive, production photos and video content for all of Shakespeare's plays.
Streaming Media
- Shakespeare's Tragedies and an Acting Lesson - Crash CourseShakespeare's tragedies...were tragic. But they had some jokes. They also changed the way tragedies were written. Characters like Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear had tragic outcomes, but they were sympathetic characters in a lot of ways. This was a big change from the way Seneca and the Greeks wrote tragedies, and it caught on.
- Comedies, Romances, and Shakespeare's Heroines: Crash CourseThis week we're continuing our discussion of William Shakespeare and looking at his comedies and romances. As well as something called problem plays. Some of his plays, they had problems. We'll also put on pants, escape to forest, and talk about Shakepeare's heroines, lots of whom had quite a bit more agency in these plays than the women in the tragedies had.
- Shakespeare SeriesNine Shakespearean plays, including King Richard II, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Tempest, King Lear, and Romeo & Juliet.
Plays
Romeo and Juliet
TheLiterature Made Easy Series is more than just plot summaries. Each book describes a classic novel and drama by explaining themes, elaborating on characters, and discussing each author's unique literary style, use of language, and point of view. Extensive illustrations and imaginative, enlightening use of graphics help to make each book in this series livelier, easier, and more fun to use than ordinary literature plot summaries. An unusual feature, "Mind Map" is a diagram that summarizes and interrelates the most important details that students need to understand about a given work. Appropriate for middle and high school students.
Hamlet
The Annotated Shakespeare series allows readers to fully understand and enjoy the rich plays of the world's greatest dramatist. One of the most frequently read and performed of all stage works, Shakespeare's Hamlet is unsurpassed in its complexity and richness. This fully annotated version of Hamlet makes the play completely accessible to readers in the 21st century. It has been carefully assembled with students, teachers and the general reader in mind. usage of Elizabethan English, pronunciation, prosody and alternative readings of phrases and lines. His on-page annotations provide readers with all the tools they need to comprehend the play and begin to explore its many possible interpretations. previous versions of the Hamlet story, along with an analysis of the characters of Hamlet and Ophelia. And in a concluding essay, Harold Bloom meditates on the originality of Shakespeare's achievement.
Macbeth
A rich "Sources and Contexts" section provides readers with an understanding of Macbeth's origins from earlier texts, specifically the works of the Roman playwright Seneca, the Tudor historian Raphael Holinshed, and a medieval drama The Slaughter of the Holy Innocents and the Death of Herod. The contexts for the play include contemporary debates on predestination vs. free will (Martin Luther vs. Erasmus), witchcraft as fiction or fact (Reginald Scot vs. King James I), the ethics of regicide (an Elizabethan homily vs. Juan de Mariana, S.J.), and a treatise on equivocation (Henry Garnet, S.J.). This edition also features adaptations--Davenant's moralistic Macbeth, some travesties, and Welcome Msomi's recent South African retelling, uMabatha.Seventeen carefully chosen essays represent four hundred years of critical and theatrical interpretations, from the early observations of Simon Forman and Samuel Johnson to the Romantic readings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, and Thomas De Quincey, to recent essays by Janet Adelman and Stephen Orgel. Sarah Siddons and Derek Jacobi remember performing Macbeth, and Peter Holland surveys film interpretations.A Selected Bibliography is also included.
The Taming of the Shrew
This edition of the Shakespeare play, The Taming of the Shrew features an extenstive array of primary documents to help contextualize the play's treatment of assertive women, marital conflict, and domestic disorder and violence.
Henry the Fourth
The text, with few departures, is that of the First Quarto (1598) edition of the play.
The Merchant of Venice
This Norton Critical Edition has been carefully edited to make The Merchant of Venice, its surrounding history, and the history of its critical reception and rewritings accessible to readers. The text of this edition is based on the 1600 First Quarto, with light editing and substantial explanatory annotations by Leah S. Marcus. "Sources and Contexts" largely focuses on the character of Shylock and the issue of anti-Semitism in the play. Materials included are diverse, and at times contradictory, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. Examples include seventeenth-century anti-Semitic literature, an essay from the same period defending Jews and arguing for their repatriation in England, an examination of the Christian theology of the play, and readings of The Merchant of Venice as exclusionary for Jews, women, and people of color. "Criticism" collects twenty-one diverse interpretations. In addition to Shylock and the question of anti-Semitism, these essays address The Merchant of Venice in the context of postcolonial, feminist, and queer theory and explore relevant issues of economic status and organization. "Rewritings and Appropriations" includes excerpts from dramatic, musical, and other literary adaptations of The Merchant of Venice, as well as a selection of poems, most of them from the twentieth century, on the character of Shylock. A Selected Bibliography is also included.
Julius Caesar
Shakespeare?s tragedy of one of the most famousassassinations in the world at an epoch-changing time in history. This richly documented Norton Critical Edition of JuliusCaesar is based on the 1623 First Folio text. It is accompaniedby a note on the text, an introduction that sets the biographicaland historical stage necessary to appreciate this richly allusiveplay, explanatory annotations, a map, and five illustrations. "Sources and Contexts" presents possible sources as well asanalogues to Julius Caesar, an account ofShakespeare?s understanding of and approach to Roman history,and Ernest Schanzer?s study of the narrative challenges posedby the play. "Criticism" includes early commentary?by, among others,Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, and HarleyGranville-Barker?on Julius Caesar as well as moderninterpretations. Among these are John W. Velz on role-playing inJulius Caesar; Jan H. Blits on Caesar?s ambiguous end;Paul A. Cantor on rhetoric, poetry and the Roman republic; and R.A. Foakes on the themes of assassination and mob violence. "Performance History" reprints accounts of various aspects ofstaging Julius Caesar by Sidney Homan, John Nettles, andRobert F. Willson, Jr. A Film Bibliography and Selected Bibliography are alsoincluded.