Shakespeare Resources on the WWW

Background Reading (added 4/9/05, in response to class discussion)

• Excerpts from Aristotle's Poetics (HTML format--web page):  

• Excerpts from Aristotle's Poetics (.doc format--MS Word):  

• Aristotle's Poetics:   Full text; trans. S. H. Butcher.  Plain text format. (Project Gutenberg)

• Aristotle's Poetics:   Full text; trans. Ingram Bywater; preface by Gilbert Murray. Plain text format. (Project Gutenberg)

• Aristotle's Poetics:   Full text; trans. W. Hamilton Fyfe.  HTML format.  (Perseus Project)

General Background on Renaissance Literature, Drama, etc.

• Voice of the Shuttle:  Renaissance and Seventeenth Century English Literature:  Collects a wide array of Internet resources; a standard resource site.  See also the main Voice of the Shuttle homepage for an astonishing variety of other material.  (U. of California/SB)
• Literary Resources--Renaissance:  Well selected list of resources, covering a broad range of topics.  (Jack Lynch, Rutgers U.)
• Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies:  Useful collection of links and resources for Renaissance studies.  Some resources are limited access.  (U. of Toronto)
• Shakespeare and the Renaissance:  Extensive and useful collection of sites.  Not limited to Shakespeare.  Part of Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet.  (Palomar College)
• Shakespeare and Renaissance Sites:  Useful collection of sites.  Heavy on Shakespeare, but also includes other Renaissance sites.  Part of Shakespeare's Life and Times.  (U. of Victoria)
• Tudor History:  Extensive and useful site for background on the Tudor era.  Includes coverage of the Tudor monarchs, cultural background, chronologies, etc.  (Lara Eakins)
• REED Presents:  WWW Links for Theatre History and Early Music:  Excellent collection of links for Renaissance and medieval performing arts.  Part of the Records of Early English Drama site.  (U. of Toronto)

General Resource Sites for Shakespeare

• Electronic Shakespeare, Resources for Researchers:  An excellent collection of links to Shakespeare resources on the Internet.  (Rosalind Tedford)
• Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet:  An excellent guide to Shakespeare resources on the Internet, as well as some original materials (timelines, etc.).  (Terry Gray, Palomar C.)
• >Shakespeare's Life and Times:  A very valuable resource on the historical and cultural background of Shakespeare's plays and of Elizabethan and Jacobean England.  Includes commentary and other material on 17 of the plays, as well as access to a rich array of contemporary texts.  (U. of Victoria)
• Surfing with the Bard:  A student guide to Shakespeare resources on the net.  Primarily intended for high school drama classes, but still very useful.  (Amy Ulen)

Electronic Texts

• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare:  One of the best editions of Shakespeare on the Internet, even though parts of the site are no longer fully functional.  Searchable, with a glossary.  Includes only the plays.  [Note:  due to a disk failure, some of the search functions are not currently available.]  (TheTech at M.I.T.)
• The Collected Works of Shakespeare:  Based on the same version of the text as the edition at M.I.T., but with less elaborate apparatus and a different glossary.  Includes both the plays and the poems.  (Matty Farrow, U. of Sydney)
• The First Folio and Early Quartos of Shakespeare:  E-text transcriptions (not facsimiles) of the plays in the First Folio, retaining original spelling, etc. Also includes early quarto versions of the plays not printed in the First Folio, plus the sonnets and The Play of Sir Thomas More.  (U. of Virginia)
• Furness Shakespeare Library:  Scanned versions of "primary and secondary sources, including both texts and images, that illuminate the theater, literature, and history of Shakespeare, Shakespearean texts, theatrical production, and criticism."  (U. of Penn.)
• Luminarium:  A beautifully designed site, covering British literature from the Middle Ages through the seventeenth century.  See especially the Renaissance and the Seventeenth Century sections.
• Renascence Editions:  "Works Printed in English, 1477-1799."  An extensive and very valuable collection of texts.  (R. Bear, U. of Oregon)
• Early Modern Literary Studies:  Electronic Texts:  A very extensive and valuable collection of links to online texts.  Includes a very wide variety of texts from the English Renaissance, as well as texts from continental literatures and a selection of medieval and classical texts.  Part of the Early Modern Literary Studies site.  (Sheffield Hallam U.)

Additional Resources

• Shakespeare Biography and Background

  • Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Website:  Site for the organization which manages the five properties associated with Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon.  Includes biographical material, historical background, etc.  Intended for general audiences.  Contains a wealth of interesting bits and pieces.
  • Shakespeare's Life and Times:  Also included under "General Resource Sites for Shakespeare," but repeated here because of its rich variety of background material.  (U. of Victoria)
  • Shakespeare's Stratford:  A guide to Shakespeare's birthplace and family home.  Includes useful biographical material, etc.

• Theatre and Performance

  • Shakespeare and the Globe:  Then and Now:  Encyclopedia Britannica's excellent set of background articles.  Includes biographical and historical background, materials on the plays and on performance, etc.
  • Shakespeare's Globe Theatre:  Web site for the rebuilt Globe Theatre in Southwark, London.  See especially their Virtual Tour to get a good idea of what the Globe looked like.
  • Biographical Index of English Drama Before 1660:  A "complete annotated list of all playwrights, actors, patrons, musicians, and miscellaneous other people active in English drama before 1660. Each entry contains basic information about the person's dates and dramatic activities, along with a list of books and articles containing biographical information."  (David Kathman)
  • The Swan Theater, London:  Ca. 1596. "One of the few surviving images of a London theater, this is a copy by Aernout van Buchel of a drawing by Johannes de Witt."  (Rebecca Bushnell, U. of Pennsylvania)
• Art and Architecture
  • Renaissance and Baroque Architecture:  Images from an architectural history class.  Includes material from fifteenth-century Italy through sixteenth-century England.  (C. W.  Westfall, U. of Virginia)
  • Tudor Architecture:  Useful overview of architecture under the Tudors.  Includes an array of images, a glossary of terms, some explanatory material, etc.  (Lara Eakins, Tudor History)
  • The WebMuseum:  An excellent resource.  The best starting point for European graphic arts on the web.  (Nicolas Pioch)  The following sections are of particular interest for the period covered by this course:
    • The Italian Renaissance (1420-1600)
    • The Northern Renaissance (1500-1615)
  • Nicholas Hilliard:  (1547-1619)  "The most celebrated of English miniaturists."  (Nicloas Pioch, WebMuseum)
    Compare three of his portraits of Queen Elizabeth:  
    • Queen Elizabeth I:  Miniature, 1572.  (Lara Eakins)
    • Queen Elizabeth I:  Pen and ink wash, ca. 1584.  (Nicloas Pioch, WebMuseum)
    • Queen Elizabeth I:  1585.  Called the "Ermine portrait."  (Lara Eakins)
  • The Family of Henry VIII:  Artist and date not given.  (Rebecca Bushnell, U. of Pennsylvania)
  • Queen Elizabeth I:  Perhaps by Federigo Zuccaro, c. 1575.  Known as the "Darnley portrait."  (Lara Eakins)
  • Queen Elizabeth I:  Marcus Gheeraerts, ca. 1592.  Known as the "Ditchley portrait."  (Rebecca Bushnell, U. of Pennsylvania)
  • Images from John Foxe, Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days (the Book of Martyrs):  1563. One of the most influential anti-Catholic works of early Elizabethan England.  It depicts, in lurid and often highly inventive detail, the persecution of English Protestants.  Highly sensational, it appealed to a broadly popular audience. (Rebecca Busnell, U. of Pennsylvania)
    • The Burning of Three Women:  An especially brutal image, including a pregnant Protestant woman giving birth in the flames.
    • The Torture of Cuthbert Simson:  A composite image of the various torments of a Protestant martyr.
• Music and Dance
  • SCA Music and Dance Homepage:  Links to resources on medieval and Renaissance music and dance.  Part of the SCA Arts and Sciences of the Middle Ages and Renaissance page.  (Society for Creative Anachronism)
  • Early Music FAQ:  A good basic introduction to early music forms, periods, composers, etc.  (Associated with the rec.music.early discussion list/newsgroup)
  • Music in Tudor England:  Some basic background on music during the Tudor period.  Includes images of instruments, sound files, lyrics, etc.  (Lara Eakins, Tudor History)
  • The Internet Renaissance Band:  A nice selection of medieval and Renaissance MIDI files.  (Curtis Clark, California State U./Pomona)
  • Classical MIDI Collection:  The Renaissance Period:  Includes music through the mid-17th century.  Part of Midiworld, and excellent source of MIDI files for classical music.
  • Classical Archives:  Early Music:  An extensive collection of MIDI files from "composers born before the XVIIth century."  Part of the Classical Archives.  (Pierre Schwab)
  • MIDIs for the Period:  "A collection of music from composers living in 1605."  
  • Classical Net--Early Music Links:  Excellent collection of links to sites having to do with all aspects of early music.
• Language
  • Renaissance Faire:  Elizabethan Accents:  A guide to pronunciation for workers at Renaissance Fairs.
  • Rhetorical Figures:  "A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples."  Useful for reading literature from an age which was acutely conscious of classical rhetoric.  (U. of Kentucky)
• The Authorship Dispute
  • The Shakespeare Authorship Page:  A good refutation of the Earl of Oxford's claim to authorship.
  • Shakespeare Authorship Pages:  A collection of links to pages on the authorship question.  It "recognizes William Shakespeare as the true author of the works credited to William Shakespeare."  (Alan H. Nelson, U. of California/Berkeley)
  • Shakespeare Oxford Society:  Home page for the principal organization promoting the Earl of Oxford's claim to Shakespearian authorship.
  • Frontline:  The Shakespeare Mystery:  Web page for the PBS program on the Oxford-Shakespeare dispute.
  • Shakespeare?  Bacon?  Who Wrote the Works?  A page on the "ciphers" and other evidence for Bacon's authorship.  (Penn Leary)
  • An Authorship Analysis: Francis Bacon as Shake-speare:  An outline of relevant documents in the case for Bacon's authorship.  Not really an analysis, but a fascinating collection of original records and documents, including a good collection of the legal records relating to Shakespeare's life.  (Paul J. Dupuy, Jr.)

Journals and Scholarly Publications

• Shakespeare Criticism:  An extensive and thorough list of links to journals and critical work available online.  Part of Shakespeare's Life and Times.  (U. of Victoria)
• Shakespeare Criticism:  A useful list of links to journals and critical work available online.  Includes quite a bit of older work.  Part of  Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet  (Terry Gray, Palomar C.)

Study Aids

• SparkNotes.com offers plot summaries and commentary on the plays, as well as message boards for posting questions and comments.  Founded by a group of Harvard undergrads; now owned by Barnes and Noble.  Also offers a number of educational products for sale. 
  • Henry V
  • Richard III
  • Twelfth Night
  • As You Like It
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • Hamlet
  • Macbeth
  • King Lear
  • The Tempest
• ClassicNotes offers plot summaries, background and analysis for the plays in their Shakespeare section.  "All of the ClassicNotes have been written and compiled by our Harvard essayists. Find detailed summaries, character information, and literature references."
  • Henry V
  • Richard III
  • Twelfth Night
  • As You Like It
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • Hamlet
  • Macbeth
  • King Lear
  • The Tempest
Shakespeare's Life and Times:  Some Plays Explored:  Background, study questions, thematic discussions, etc. for a number of plays.  Part of the Shakespeare's Life and Times site.  (U. of Victoria)
• Henry V
• Twelfth Night
• As You Like It
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Hamlet
• Macbeth
• King Lear
• The Tempest
• Shakespeare's Works:  This page from Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet covers a variety of interesting links, including study guides, lectures, etc. on individual plays.  (Terry Gray, Palomar C.)