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Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide.

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Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide Edited by Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003

The new Oxford Guide to Shakespeare is a big book in every sense. It features forty-five separate articles by a fine array of Shakespearean heavyweights, plus nineteen "readings" of different Shakespearean texts, supplemented by still more readings within some of the articles. It is a large-format paperback volume almost 700 pages long and weighing a couple of kilograms. While inevitably, in a book of this sort, some bits are better than others, editors Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin have worked hard to achieve an impressive consistency among the various contributions. The volume is directed toward students and interested nonspecialist readers, and most of the essays offer a useful overview of a particular issue or critical problem in language geared toward such readers. The aim of the book is thus primarily pedagogical, and it succeeds admirably in that aim. In the introductory essay, Stanley Wells confronts the fundamental question, "Why study Shakespeare?" and answers it from a number of angles: humanistic--Shakespeare covers "an extraordinary range of human experience"; cultural--he has had an enormous influence on "global culture"; and historical--his works are best appreciated if one knows about the social, intellectual and theatrical milieu in which he worked. The ensuing articles...

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