Welcome

Welcome to the Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature Subject Pages

This page brings together key resources for the students of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature

Use the menu on the left to help you find resources for study, support, advice, information and training.

Getting Started

Here are a few important resources to help you on your way:

Cambridge Companions to Literature and Classics
The Cambridge Companions to Literature and Classics collection offers thousands of comprehensive and accessible essays on major authors, periods and genres, written by experts and designed for student readers. For the author Companions, each writer is placed in literary and historical context; their major works are analysed,either in separate chapters or grouped according to theme, and their influence on later writers assessed.
FindIt@Bham

The University of Birmingham Library resource discovery system, giving you details of where to find printed and electronic materials. FindIt also contains the collections of the University of Birmingham's Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections archive catalogue, providing researchers with access to details about our archive and manuscript collections.
Literature Online (LION)
This is the major database for all aspects of English literature containing full-text of collections of English and American literature. It also incorporates the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) and the MLA International Bibliography, so it can be used to search for references to European literatures as well.
ProQuest Literature & Language
A cross-searchable collection of 11 databases including the MLA International Bibliography and British Humanities Index covering all areas of literature and language as well as British and American theses in these subjects.
World Shakespeare Bibliography
Indexes and abstracts books, reviews, articles, papers and theses on all aspects of Shakespeare and related subjects.

A Guide to Useful Classmarks

Shakespeare - PR 2750 – PR 3112

PR2752 – PR 2755 – Modern editions of the plays. (N.B. the Main Library shelves these with criticism)

PR 2801 – PR 2839 – Criticism of individual plays in alphabetical order, All’s Well That Ends Well – The Winter’s Tale

PR 2894 – Biographies of Shakespeare

PR 2981 – PR 2985 – Criticism of plays by genre: Comedies, Late plays, Histories, Tragedies, Groups of plays

PR 2987 – Teaching Shakespeare, Shakespeare in education

PR 3071 – Textual criticism, editing Shakespeare

PR 3091 – Shakespeare in performance, general works

PR 3093 – Shakespeare on film and television

PR 3095 – Shakespeare in performance in the Elizabethan period

PR 3100 – Shakespeare in performance, modern

PR 3105 – PR 3109 – Shakespeare in performance in specific countries (PR 3105 is USA)

Other Renaissance dramatists

PR 2411 – PR 2749 – Anonymous works and authors A – S

PR 3135 – PR 3195 – Authors S – Z

General criticism of Renaissance drama – PR 651 (general) and PR 658 (alphabetical by topic)

General criticism of Renaissance literature (includes prose and poetry) – PR 421 (general) and PR 428 (alphabetical by topic)

Drama - PN

PN 2061 – PN 2071 – acting: method acting, movement, speech etc.

PN 2575 – PN 2599 – history of British theatre

PN 2589 – PN 2590 – Renaissance theatre: boy actors, Lord Chamberlain’s Men etc.

PN 2596 – theatre in specific towns: PN 2596.L7 – London, PN 2596.S7 – Stratford

PN 2598 – biographies of British actors