Student Shakespeare Library – serie

Shakespeare's Theatre consolidates the author's forty years of experience in studying and staging Shakespeare's plays. Under an alphabetical list of relevant terms, names and concepts, the book reviews current knowledge of the character and operation of theatres in Shakespeare's time, with an explanation of their origins. Coverage includes the practices of Elizabethan actors and script writers: methods of characterization; gesture, blocking and choreography, including music, dance and fighting; actors' rhetorical interaction with audiences; and use of costumes, stage props, and make-up. The author makes use of scripts and scholarship about original stagings of Shakespeare and suggests how those productions related to modern staging. Much of this material has been developed as a result of the recent increased interest in the significance of performance for interpreting Shakespeare, including the recovery of the archaeological evidence about the original Rose and Globe Theatres. The book contains current reading lists for each topic and consolidates these in an overall bibliography for Shakespeare and his theatres.

More than just a book of definitions, the dictionary provides a comprehensive account of Shakespeare's portrayal of military life, tactics, and technology. Warfare is everywhere in Shakespeare, and the military action in many of Shakespeare's plays show that he possessed an extraordinarily detailed knowledge of warfare, both ancient and modern. His use of military expressions, customs, and ideas is discussed, with insights into how the plays comment upon military incidents and personalities of the Elizabethan era, and how warfare was presented on the Elizabethan stage. Entries include 'alarum', 'battery', 'ensign', 'kern', 'martial law', 'sentinel', 'Turk', 'vaward'.

Shakespeare's Legal Language: A Dictionary is a comprehensive reference guide to Shakespeare's legal references. An A-Z of over 100 entries explores early modern social life, legal thought, and the interaction of these within Shakespearean drama. The law is a central theme in many of Shakespeare's plays and every play in the canon makes reference to legality or justice. Indeed, Shakespeare displays considerable interest in the capacity of legal language to convey matters of social, moral and intellectual substance and the use of legal langauge throughout his work shows he was clearly familiar with legal terminology. Shakespeare's Legal Language is an ideal guide to Shakespeare's legal references for students of Shakespeare at every level. Professor B.J. Sokol is at Goldsmiths College, University of London and Dr. Mary Sokol is honorary research fellow at University College London.

Most scholarly attention on Shakespeare's vocabulary has been directed towards his enrichment of the language through borrowing words from other languages, and has thus concentrated on the more learned aspects of his vocabulary. However, the bulk of Shakespeare's output consists of plays, and to make these appear lifelike he needed to employ a collquial and informal style. This aspect of his work has been largely disregarded apart from his bawdy language. This dictionary includes all types of non-standard and informal language and lists all examples found in Shakespeare's works. These include dialect form, colloquial forms, non-standard and variant forms, fashionable words and puns. Norman Blake is Emeritus Professor of English at Sheffield University.