Research Guides: LIT 3350: Shakespeare: Concordances & Dictionaries

Concordances

A concordance is an alphabetical list the words (especially the important ones) found in a text or body of work. A concordance often includes the citations where the word occurs in the text as well as the word's immediate context.

Online Concordances

Concordance of Shakespeare's Complete Works | Open Source Shakespeare
An online, freely available concordance of all word forms / variation of words found in Shakespeare's works. Browse words alphabetically by letter or search for specific words.

Concordances in the Reference Collection

A Complete Concordance or Verbal Index to Words, Phrases, and Passages in the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare, with a Supplementary Concordance to the Poems by John Bartlett
Call #: REF 822.33 B289
Publication Date: 1953
A complete concordance or verbal index to words, phrases and passages in the dramatic works of Shakespeare. There is also a supplementary concordance to the poems.
A Concordance to Shakespeare by Andrew Becket
Call #: REF 822.33 Z615
Publication Date: 1787; 1970
Reprint of "A Concordance to Shakespeare: Suited to All the Editions, in which the Distinguished and Parallel Passages in the Plays of that Justly Admired Writer are Methodically Arranged. To which are Added, Three Hundred Notes and Illustrations, Entirely New"
The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare by Marvin Spevack (Editor)
Call #: REF 822.33 Z654
Publication Date: 1973
The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare is the first complete and reliable one-volume concordance to all the plays and poems of Shakespeare.

Dictionaries

Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
Online dictionary covering meaning, history, and usage of words across the English-speaking world.

Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is a guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.

The OED covers words from across the English-speaking world, from North America to South Africa, from Australia and New Zealand to the Caribbean. It also offers the best in etymological analysis, listings of variant spellings, and shows pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet.

The online OED corresponds to the Second Edition (20 volumes in print).

Glossaries

Glossaries provide brief definitions of terms related to a specific subject or text, in this case, Shakespeare's works.

Shakespeare's Language: A Glossary of Unfamiliar Words in His Plays and Poems by Eugene F. Shewmaker
Call #: REF 822.33 Z674
Publication Date: 2008
A Shakespeare Glossary, 2nd rev. ed. by C. T. Onions
Call #: REF 822.33 Z656
Publication Date: 1963
Shakespeare's Words: A Glossary and Language Companion by David Crystal; Ben Crystal
Call #: REF 822.33 Z626
Publication Date: 2002