The Arden Encyclopedia of Shakespeare's Language

The Arden Encyclopedia of Shakespeare’s Language is the first comprehensive account of Shakespeare’s language to use computational methods derived from corpus linguistics – methods of choice for today’s lexicographer.

These first two volumes in this growing encyclopedia together provide a non-etymological A-Z ‘dictionary’ that works through the frequency of word usage to reveal patterns of meaning and usage, and to examine what Shakespeare’s words actually do in the environments they inhabit.

All words from all of Shakespeare’s plays are included – not just words judged to be ‘difficult’ – only leaving out proper names. The dictionary also covers words whose first known use is in Shakespeare (e.g. ear-piercing).

Entries focus on the use and meanings of Shakespeare’s words, both in the context of what he wrote and in the context in which he wrote.

Every word is compared with a 321 million word corpus comprising the work of Shakespeare’s contemporaries.

Internal comparisons reveal how Shakespeare’s language varies dynamically across his works, showing, for example, whether certain words are peculiar to tragedies, comedies or histories, or to certain social groups, and whether they have a particular stylistic flavour.

Definitions are kept clear and concise, making the dictionary an ideal accessible reference.
Words are classified according to their frequency band: how often they occur, in comparison to other words in Shakespeare’s plays.

Entries for words that occur more than 50 times contain charts showing the word’s frequency associations with:
- Comedy, history or tragedy (and whether this differs from other playwrights);
- Male or female characters (and whether this differs from other playwrights);
- Particular social status groups of characters (and whether this differs from other playwrights)
- Particular genres in published writing of the time (e.g. literary, religious, administrative, informational, instructional).

The volumes together establish in detail both what is unique about Shakespeare’s language and what Shakespeare’s language meant to his contemporaries, including, for example, their attitudes towards love or death, what it meant to be Welsh or a harlot, or even the significance of eating fish as opposed to beef.

This innovative reference resource is essential for English, Drama and Linguistics libraries, offering Shakespeare scholars and advanced students of Shakespeare and early modern literature fresh linguistic insights into Shakespeare’s rich language.