Literaryhistory.com specializes in writers in English from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But since many students search this site for authors from other time periods, we are listing some of the best places to start.

main page | 20th century authors | 19th century authors | postcolonial authors

Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593)

http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2941 Introductory article on Christopher Marlowe by Lisa Hopkins, Sheffield Hallam University, from the Literary Encyclopedia.

http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/search.html For extensive Christopher Marlowe criticism, search Early Modern Literary Studies, a respected peer-reviewed, open-access scholarly journal. A recent search of this journal brought up 123 articles on "Christopher Marlowe," 36 articles on "Doctor Faustus," 76 articles on "Marlowe and Edward II," 26 articles are returned for "Marlowe and Tamburlaine," 15 for "Marlowe and Hero and Leander," 11 for "Marlowe and The Jew of Malta."

Shakespeare's Comedies: All's Well That Ends Well; As You Like It; The Comedy of Errors; Cymbeline; Love's Labours Lost; Measure for Measure; The Merry Wives of Windsor; The Merchant of Venice; A Midsummer Night's Dream; Much Ado About Nothing; Pericles; Taming of the Shrew; The Tempest; Troilus and Cressida; Twelfth Night; Two Gentlemen of Verona; Winter's Tale.

Shakespeare's Poetry: The Sonnets; A Lover's Complaint; The Rape of Lucrece; Venus and Adonis; Funeral Elegy by W.S.

http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/search.html For extensive Shakespeare criticism, search Early Modern Literary Studies, a respected peer-reviewed, open-access scholarly journal. A search of this journal brought up 578 articles on Shakespeare; "Hamlet" brought up 198 articles, "Macbeth" yielded 79 articles, "Romeo and Juliet" brought 83 relevant matches, "Othello" provided 123 articles. This excellent scholarly journal can also be searched for terms such as Shakespeare and comedy, tragedy, Shakespeare in performance, etc.

The Time-Chain of Emotions: Ideas into Forms in Sonnet 30, a brief essay on Shakespeare's lyric art in Sonnet 30, by America's best poetry reader, Helen Vendler.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=11903059_1 "Will the Real Shakespeare Please Stand Up," by John Gross, in Commentary Magazine, March 2005. Covers two recent books on Shakespeare, Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World and Marjorie Garber's Shakespeare After All. "If Greenblatt is a celebrated practitioner of the new historicism, Garber is a celebrated practitioner of psychocriticism."

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n24/kerm01_.html In "Writing about Shakespeare," venerable literary scholar Frank Kermode reflects on current Shakespeare criticism. "Interests and attitudes change, if it were not so the whole business of criticism, especially academic criticism, would become even more sterile, even more self-involved than it has usually been. The conversation must go on somehow, for when there is nothing more to say about a book the book dies, and the parasitical criticism dies with it. But it seems to me wrong to seek to advance your career by professing to be concerned with Shakespeare, while actually writing about what happens to interest you more, forcing a limited set of new interests onto the old topic, using that topic as an excuse to write about these more fashionable concerns." From London Review of Books, Vol. 21 No. 24, 9 December 1999.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n02/paul01_.html "In the Workshop" a review by Tom Paulin of The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets by Helen Vendler, Harvard Univ. Press and Shakespeare's Sonnets, ed. Katherine Duncan-Jones, Arden Press. In London Review of Books, Vol. 20 No. 2, 22 January 1998

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n01/kerm01_.html "Our Muddy Vesture," noted Shakespeare scholar Frank Kermode reviews William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice directed by Michael Radford. In London Review of Books, Vol. 27 No. 1, 6 January 2005. The verdict: "This movie version of the play will just about do."

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v19/n24/hawk01_.html "On the Way in which Tragedy 'Openeth up the Greatest Wounds and Showeth forth the Ulcers that are Covered with Tissue'" by Terence Hawkes. A discussion of the book Issues of Death: Mortality and Identity in English Renaissance Tragedy by Michael Neill, Oxford Univ. Press. From London Review of Books, Vol. 19 No. 24, 11 December 1997

http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5160 Introductory article on "the world's most quoted poet and dramatist," by Lois Potter, University of Delaware, from the Literary Encyclopedia.

http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/homepage.html The Shakespeare web site of the British Library provides access to the British Library's 93 copies of the 21 plays by Shakespeare printed in quarto before the theatres were closed in 1642, and contains additional material on the cultural and historical Elizabethan context, English drama, the history of books and reading, the history of printing and publishing, the life and works of Shakespeare, and theatre history

http://www.fathom.com/course/21701729/index.html "The Genres of Shakespeare's Plays," by Susan Snyder. A fairly substantial discussion (by web standards) of Shakespeare's plays by genre, with sections on The Three Genres,Contrasting Comedy and Tragedy, The Genre of Tragedy, The Genre of Comedy, The History Genre, Between the Genres. From Cambridge Univ. Press, via Fathom.

http://www.fathom.com/course/28701907/index.html Modern Film Adaptations of Shakespeare" from the American Film Institute, via Fathom. Sections cover Shakespeare: The Ultimate Crowd Pleaser, A Century of Shakespeare on Film, Romeo and Juliet: Of its Time and of Ours, Imagery in Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, Contemporary Youth Meet Shakespeare, Again.

http://www.fathom.com/course/21701737/session1.html "Committing Shakespeare to Print,"by David Scott Kastan. From Cambridge Univ. Press, via Fathom. An lively account of the publishing and textual history of Shakespeare's plays, especially useful for students.

http://www.fathom.com/special/shakespeare "Shakespeare and His World" from the Fathom consortium contains additional sections on Shakespeare: "The Stars of Shakespeare's Time," "Body of a Queen," "Shakespeare and the Erotic," "Shakespeare Faces Retirement," "Audience Behavior in Shakespeare's London"

http://www.fathom.com/course/21701738/index.html "Kingship in the Early Modern World," by Mia Rodriguez-Salgado and Joan-Pau Rubies, from the London School of Economics and Political Science, via Fathom. An online seminar on sixteenth century politics that places Queen Elizabeth in cultural and historical context.

http://shakespeare.palomar.edu Terry A. Gray's "Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet," which aims to be a complete guide to Shakespeare on the internet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/dramamerchantvenice/index.shtml A lesson plan from the BBC for teaching The Merchant of Venice to high school students.

English Renaissance

http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/search.html A search of Early Modern Literary Studies brought up 497 articles on the Renaissance

http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/search.html A search of Early Modern Literary Studies yielded 16 articles on Campion.

Preston, Claire. A substantial introduction to Sir Philip Sidney from the Literary Encyclopedia, Oct. 25, 2002

http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/search.html A search of Early Modern Literary Studies yielded 100 relevant articles on Sidney

Woodcock, Matthew. A substantial introduction to Edmund Spenser, from the Literary Encyclopedia, May 11, 2004

http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/search.html A search of Early Modern Literary Studies yielded 116 relevant articles.

main page | 20th century authors | 19th century authors | postcolonial authors

updated 3/28/2005 | 1998-2005 by Jan Pridmore