General Shakespeare Criticism

General Criticism

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Articles are arranged alphabetically by author.

Best, Michael. Scholarly Editions of Shakespeare for the Internet.
Boerner, Margaret. Brightest Heaven of Invention, in First Things.
Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy, from Project Gutenberg. See also, the full view, PDF version from Google Book Search.
Brooke, C. F. Tucker. The Tudor Drama: A History of English National Drama To The Retirement of Shakespeare, Houghton Mifflin, 1911, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 461 pages.
Bushnell, Rebecca. Reinventing Rare Books: The "Virtual Furness Shakespeare Library" at the University of Pennsylvania, EMLS 5.3.
Castaldo, Annalisa. A Text of Shreds and Patches: Shakespeare and Popular Culture. (SRASP - Volume 20, 1997).
Coyle, Martin. Attacking the Cult-Historicists, in Renaissance Forum 1:1.
Davidson, Mary Catherine. Did Shakespeare Consciously Use Archaic English? EMLS Special Issue 1.
Derdzinski, Mark. "'Invisible Bullets': Unseen Potential in Stephen Greenblatt's New Historicism" (Connotations, 11.2-3).
Díaz-Fernández, José Ramón. Shakespeare on Television: A Bibliography of Criticism, from EMLS 6.1, May 2000.
Dowden, Edward. Shakespeare, 1879, full-view from Google Book Search.
Dowden, Edward. Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art, 1879, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 434 pages.
Dowden, Edward. Introduction to Shakespeare, 1895, full-view from Google Book Search.
Ewert, K. A. Commodification and Representation: The Body in Shakespeare’s History Plays. (SRASP - Volume 21, 1998)
Finn, Patrick. @ the Table of the Great: Hospitable Editing and the Internet Shakespeare Editions Project, EMLS 9.3.
Fleay, Frederick Gard. Shakespeare Manual, 1876. A full view, PDF downloadable, scan of the very influential work by the great Victorian editor from Google Book Search.
Forward , Geoffrey G. What "Maior" is Falstaff Denying?
Galey, Alan. Dizzying the Arithmetic of Memory: Shakespearean Documents as Text, Image, and Code, EMLS 9.3.
Godshalk, W. L. Shakespeare’s Edward III. (SRASP - Volume 21, 1998).
Gorman, Sara. "The Theatricality of Transformation: cross-dressing, sexual misdemeanour and gender/sexuality spectra on the Elizabethan stage, Bridewell Hospital Court Records, and the Repertories of the Court of the Aldermen, 1574-1607". EMLS 13.3.
Gurr, Andrew. Other Accents: Some Problems with Identifying Elizabethan Pronunciation, EMLS 7.1.
Guy-Bray, Stephen. "Shakespeare and the Invention of the Heterosexual". EMLS Special Issue 16 (October, 2007).
Halpern, Richard. Shakespeare's Perfume, in Early Modern Culture, with response.
Hammersmith, James P. "Shakespeare and the Tragic Virtue." Southern Humanities Review 24.3 (Summer 1990): 245-54. On-line publication edited by Joanne E. Gates, 1998. Pagination conforms to print edition.
Harris, Colin. "Polite Conversation": Performance, Politics, and National Unity in William Hazlitt's Theater Criticism. Included because of the references to Shakespeare and Hazlitt's influence on the 19th Century view.
Harris, Craig. To Prove a Villain - The Elizebethan Villain as Revenger.
Honigmann, E. A. J. "Catholic Shakespeare? A Response to Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel" (Connotations 12.1).
- And carrying on the Connotations debate: Hammerschmidt-Hummel, Hildegard. ''The most important subject that can possibly be': A Reply to E. A. J. Honigmann"
Hope, Jonathan and Witmore, Michael. The Very Large Textual Object: A Prosthetic Reading of Shakespeare, EMLS 9.3.
Johnson, Charles F. Shakespeare and His Critics (1909), full view and PDF from Google Book Search, 386 pages.
Johnson, Samuel. Johnson on Shakespeare : essays and notes (1908), ed. Walter Raleigh, from Internet Archive, containing Johnson's famous preface to his 1765 edition of Shakespeare and a collection of notes on various of the plays.
Johnston, Ian. Critical Approaches to Shakespeare: Some Initial Observations.
Kermode, Frank. Writing About Shakespeare, London Review of Books, 1999.
Kelly, Philippa. Surpassing Glass: Shakespeare's Mirrors, EMLS 8.1.
Lancashire, Ian. The Common Reader's Shakespeare. EMLS Special Issue 2.
Law, Ernest. "Shakespeare in Hampton Court Palace" (from the London Illustrated News, April 26, 1919, pp.596-599).
Leimberg, Inge. On New Historicism: "Shakespeare De-witched: A Response to Stephen Greenblatt"
Lenz, Joseph. Base Trade: Theater As Prostitution. ELH freebie.
Longstaffe, Steve. What is the English history play and why are they saying such terrible things about it? Renaissance Forum 2.2 (Autumn 97).
Lounsbury, Thomas R. Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist with an account of his reputation at various periods, Scribners, 1908, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
M. W. MacCallum. Shakespeare's Roman Plays and their Background, from the Perseus Project, Tufts University.
MacDonald, George (1824-1905). Dish of Orts, a : Chiefly Papers on the Imagination, and on Shakespeare (Project Gutenberg).

The Connotations series provoked by M. M. Mahood's Shakespeare's Wordplay: Some Reappraisals:
- Mahood, M. M. "Introducing the Subject"
- Laird, David. "The Magic of M. M. Mahood's Shakespeare's Wordplay"
- Hunt, Maurice. "Poetry vs. Plot in The Winter's Tale: Modernity and Morality in M. M. Mahood's Shakespeare's Wordplay"
- Gibbons, Brian. "Doubles and Likenesses-with-difference: The Comedy of Errors and The Winter's Tale"
- Muir, Kenneth. "Remembrance of Things Past"
- Mahood, M. M. "'Shakespeare's Wordplay--Some Reappraisals': A Reply"
Moulton, Charles Wells (ed.). The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, (1901).

"Moulton prints brief but well-chosen excerpts from commentaries on many of the greatest but also many of the most obscure writers and works, as well as on nearly everything in-between. He usually begins with the earliest available commentators and then moves forward, so that his excerpts typically provide a clear sense of the evolution of critical opinions. "
Marx, Steven. 'Shakespeare's Pacifism.' From Renaissance Quarterly, Spring 1992. An outstanding article.
Oates, Joyce Carol. Randy Souther has created the beautifully designed and enlightening Joyce Carol Oates Home Page, featuring three essays by Oates on Troilus and Cressida, Antony and Cleopatra, and King Lear.
O'Donnell, Michael J. All the references to audible sound in Shakespeare.
Osborne, Laurie.
- Romancing the Bard, a long essay with many related resources, on Shakespeare and romance fiction.
- An interesting, non-linear Hyperessay on Shakespearean Criticism.
Prince, Kathryn. Illustration, Text, and Performance in Early Shakespeare for Children, placing Lambs' Tales from Shakespear in context. [PDF]
Robson, Mark. Looking with ears, hearing with eyes: Shakespeare and the Ear of the Early Modern, EMLS 7.1.
Rubin, Richard Marc. "The Absence of Religion in Shakespeare: Dewey and Santayana on Shakespeare and Religion," The Santayana Society, 2002, [PDF].
Santayana, George. Shakespeare: Made in America, (1915) The New Republic Online.
Schneider, Matthew. Mimetic Polemicism: René Girard and Harold Bloom contra the "School of Resentment" A Review Essay, from Anthropoetics II, no. 1 (June 1996).
Siemens, R.G. Disparate Structures, Electronic and Otherwise: Conceptions of Textual Organisation in the Electronic Medium, with Reference to Electronic Editions of Shakespeare and the Internet. EMLS.
Smith, David Nichol. Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare, 1903. A full view Google Book Search scan with a fully downloadable PDF version. This fascinating volume contains essays by Rowe (the original Life of Shakespeare), Dennis, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, Dr. Johnson, Farmer and Morgann. The essays (prefaces to collected works by these great editors) show the growth in stature of Shakespeare over the 18th century from man to idol.
Sohmer, Steve. 12 June 1599: Opening Day at Shakespeare's Globe. EMLS.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909) from the Swinburne Project at the University of Indiana.
- A Study of Shakespeare.
- The Age of Shakespeare.
- Contemporaries of Shakespeare.
- In this context see T. S. Eliot "Swinburne as Critic" in The Sacred Wood, 1920.
A Connotations (6.1) debate on editing Shakespeare:
- Spevack, Marvin. "The End of Editing Shakespeare"
- Foakes, R. A. "The Need for Editions of Shakespeare: A Response to Marvin Spevack"
- Kind, Nicholas. "A Letter in Reply to Marvin Spevack, 'The End of Editing Shakespeare'"

Veatch,Charles. Was Shakespeare a Barber? The Secret of the Bard's Private Life Revealed at Last, from MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE VOLUME LIX November, 1916 Number II pp. 319-323.
Velz, John W. Shakespeare and the Classical Tradition A Critical Guide to Commentary: 1660-1960, An electronic republication of the edition of 1968 from the University of Minnesota Press, courtesy of Internet Shakespeare Editions.
Ward, Ian. Shakespeare and the Politics of Community, EMLS 4.3.
Warner, Beverley E. Famous introductions to Shakespeare's plays by the notable editors of the eighteenth century, (1906), from the Internet Archive; available in multiple formats. Includes introductions by Heminge and Condell, Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, Johnson, Stevens, Capell, Reed and Malone.
Webster, John. Close Reading Shakespeare: A Course Portfolio. Very thorough and interesting. Carnegie Chronicle, May, 1999.
Winson, Patricia. "A Double Spirit of Teaching": What Shakespeare's Teachers Teach Us. EMLS Special Issue 1.
Woolway, Joanne. Critical Shakespeare. EMLS.