EESE 7/1998

Shakespearean Resources on the Internet

Anja Beinroth/Doris Feldmann (Erlangen)

In view of the current debate about Shakespeare and the new media as well as the growing number of computerized Shakespeare resourcesresources 1, it seems convenient to give an overview over electronic Shakespeare material available to Shakespeare scholars and students via the Internet. The present article aims to provide a detailed, annotated bibliography of Shakespearean Web Sites. Additionally, we will present the multimedia version of a Shakespeare play on CD-ROM and supply practical advice for its use. Feedback on the usefulness and practical application of the various hypermedia Shakespeares from the perspective of other users would be appreciated.

1. Discussion lists

There is a Shakespeare mailing list (SHAKSPER), information about which can be found on the WWW at the following site:

http://idt.net/~kcn/askquestion.htm

There is also a Usenet newsgroup:

Some of the Websites also offer space for queries and discussion. Most of the posts are requests for help with coursework, essays and suchlike, though some encourage wider-reaching discussion. Here are some typical postings:

2. World Wide Websites
(including details for WWW discussion lists)

Most sites offer lots of links to other sites; some offer the complete works (copyright-free versions, sometimes amended) usually including wordsearch facilities and sometimes a little bit of hypertext. Gradually, more thoroughly annotated versions of individual texts are also appearing on the WWW. An increasing number of American university lecturers integrate the WWW in their courses, but most of what they offer is directed mainly or exclusively at students on these courses (details of the course syllabus, marking criteria, and such). In general, there is an abundance of Shakespeare Websites, most of which are of very little actual use to a student researching Shakespeare. It also requires an awful lot of time to find one's way around what is on offer (especially since it keeps changing), time which it seems to me could be more usefully and productively spent reading and researching in a "real" library!

• The Tech
  

  The Tech is the campus newspaper at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Its Shakespeare pages are developed and maintained by Jeremy Hylton (jeremy@the-tech.mit.edu). It is perhaps the most ambitious Shakespeare project on the WWW. The Homepage
  

  http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/works.html
  

  gives an index of the Shakespeare pages and lists the titles of the complete works (in a table with hypertexts links). Plays can be accessed by scene or as one complete text. A list of characters is also provided with each play. The Shakespeare texts have hypertext links to the glossary. There is a search facility to search specific works for specific words (or sequences of letters). Also based on the Moby Shakespeare.
  

• Shakespeare Illustrated
  

  Another site which adds a visual dimension to Shakespeare's work is Shakespeare Illustrated, maintained by Harry Rusche of Emory University's English department (enghr@emory.edu). This site "explores nineteenth-century paintings, criticism and productions of Shakespeare's plays and their influences on one another". A detailed introduction to the project is given at
  

  http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/classes/Shakespeare_Illustrated/intro.html.
  

  The illustrations can be accessed by artist or by the title of the play they illustrate.
  

• The Shakespeare Web
  

  A formerly comprehensive site, the Shakespeare Web
  

  http://www.shakespeare.com/
  

  has undergone some alterations recently and continues to change. Its Shakespeare search facility has been deleted, there are now only few links, and the popular discussion area, Shakespeare Queries - and Replies - from Web Surfers (http://www.shakespeare.com/qandr.html) was taken offline on 31 May 1997, although older posts, divided into queries from "Lazy or Unwilling Students", "Genuinely Interested Students" and "Everyone Else", may still be viewed.
  

  Information on the Shakespeare magazine, sponsored by Georgetown University and Cambridge University Press, which was started in late 1996, can be found at
  

  http://www.shakespearemag.com/.
  

  Among other things, the detailed contents of every issue can be found at this site.
  

• Collections of links
  

  There are quite a few more WWW sites which are of interest mainly for their commented links to other sites (i.e. they give a short description of each):
  

  • Shakespeare im Internet
    http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/shakespeare/
    

  Reference
  

  1This article is an update and continuation of D. Feldmann, "Multimedia Shakespeares", in: D. Feldmann / F.W. Neumann / Th. Rommel (eds.), Anglistik im Internet. Proceedings of the 1996 Erfurt Conference on Computing in the Humanities. Heidelberg: Winter, 1997, pp. 129-143.