Teachers' Resources for Shakespeare

The following is a list of books and other resources that can be very useful for teachers preparing lessons, discussions, and assignments on Shakespeare plays. Please contribute your ideas for extending and improving this list.

• Brightest Heaven of Invention, A Christian Guide to Six Shakespeare Plays. Excellent book by Peter J. Leithart (Cannon Press, Moscow, ID, 1996) with chapters on Henry V, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, Taming of the Shrew, and Much Ado About Nothing. Also an introduction on "A Christian Approach to Literary Study" and general introduction essays to history, tragedy, and comedy plays. I find the material quite sophisticated, and use it primarily with A.P. English classes, although it can be a useful resource at the College Prep level as well.
  
  
• Stories from Shakespeare by Marchette Chute. For generations a standard little reference book with easy-to-read but literate and accurate prose summaries of 36 of the 37 plays of Shakespeare (the 36 included in the First Folio, excluding Pericles). When you need a quick summary for any reason, this is an excellent resource. I sometimes have students read one of the summaries if I want them to have a working knowledge of a plot line that somehow parallels a play they are actually reading. (Teach Twelfth Night and include a summary of Comedy of Errors, for example.) The book also has a useful 7-page introduction.
  
  
• Twisted Tales from Shakespeare by Richard Armour, "twistfully illustrated by Campbell Grant." My dear old Dad, bless him, introduced this book to me while I was still in high school. A hilarious collection of pseudo-academic spoofs on Hamlet, Macbeth, Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo & Juliet, Merchant of Venice, and Othello. Also spurious introductions on Shakespeare's Life, The Elizabethan Theater, and Shakespeare's Development, and appendices on The Sonnets and Authorship of the Plays, which offers a fractured guide to those theories that Shakespeare didn't write anything at all. My rule: Students MUST master the real play before being allowed to see the spoof. Out of print for years, I'm seeing used copies on Amazon for $14 and up. My old copy says $2.45 on the cover, 70 cents higher than the original 1957 published price.
  
  
• An excellent on-line "concordance" to Shakespeare's works is available at www.rhymezone.com/shakespeare/ Enter a word or phrase and find where it appears in Shakespeare's writings.
  
  
• Christ in the Drama by Fred Eastman, (Macmillan Co., New York, 1947). Chapter Two is titled “The Influence of Christ in Shakespeare’s Plays.” In this venerable classic, Eastman gives special attention to Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear, but also deals with Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, and Julius Caesar. (Other Shakespeare titles are referred to in passing.) Available as of this writing from Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com.
  
  
• Shakespearean Criticism, published by Thomson Gale. This is beyond being a gold mine; it’s the Mother Lode! In printed form it is a series of more than 80 volumes, with new volumes added periodically, collecting short scholarly articles and excerpts on Shakespearean drama. Each volume updates a complete indexing of the entire set, with a Character Index, Topic Index, and Topic Index classified by play titles. Bibliographic information is included. Probably available only in large libraries such as those on college campuses. My students and I use the set at the University of Oregon library. The material is now being made available as an online database as well.