Oxford Companion To Shakespeare

Description: 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.

Review:
"It is difficult to think of a topic that is not touched upon in this new handbook....Its embrace of all things Shakespearean makes this volume a necessity for academic and public libraries."--Booklist [STARRED REVIEW] "Heavy and oversized, but it's also packed with more than 3,000 entries on the plays and poetry of William Shakespeare.,, .A gift of scholarship and entertainment."--Chicago Tribune "Written to complement rather than critique the works of Shakespeare, this erudite but immensely readable volume is an essential addition to the Oxford Shakespeare....Authoritative yet succinct, this belongs in any library serving Shakespeare students and scholars."--Library Journal
"The volume's greatest strength is the detailed attention given to the evolution of Shakespeare as literary giant and cultural icon over four centuries."--Choice "For loads of hard information on Shakespeare's canon, this well-illustrated, encyclopedic reference book offers play synopses, critical analysis

Contents: Contents; Preface; Acknowledgements; Contributors; Thematic Listing of Entries; List of plays; Note to the reader; Oxford Companion to Shakespeare; The British Isles and France in the English Histories and Macbeth; The royal family in Shakespeare's English Histories; Shakespeare's life, works, and reception: a partial chronology; Further reading