Shakespeare

• On-Campus Collection

• Databases

• Selected Journals

• Internet Resources

• Subjects

• Research Tips

Welcome to the fascinating world of Shakespeare! Studies of Shakespeare can be approached as literary criticism, history, and theater among others and a plethora of sources are available to the avid researcher. 

In the PHC Library catalog, you can search a variety of resources by title, author, keyword, or phrase, linking you to journal articles, ebooks, and print books in the on-campus collection. The more specific your search terms, the more specific the results will be.  For our Distance Learning (DL) students, excerpts from print items held in the on campus library can be provided on request.

If you are accessing electronic resources from off-campus and are required to log in, use your student portal user name and password to gain access. If you have difficulty with the website or accessing any resources, please let library staff know by email at askalibrarian@phc.edu or  library@phc.edu. 

Professional library assistance is available on campus, by phone at 540-441-8400, or by email at askalibrarian@phc.edu.

Databases

• Literary Reference Center- is an extensive, full text reference database with information combined from literary reference works, journals, and books. A search here is sure to bring results on any of a variety of literary topics. Please access this database through the Electronic Resources / Literature Research section from the library home page.
• Academic Search Premier accesses a wealth of information including not only literature, but historical background, genre, and political influences of the works and on the works.

Internet Resources

• British Library - Shakespeare  is a single source for all things Shakespeare. Did you know that King Lear was titled, not as a drama or tragedy, but as a "true chronicle of historie" or the 1603 quarto version reads the line from Hamlet as, "To be or not to be, I, there is the point."
• Royal Shakespeare Company provides background information on his life, political developments, contemporaries, influences, as well as, video clips of various productions, such as Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.
• Archive.org provides access to online scholarly works, such as Queen Elizabeth and her times: a series of unedited personal correspondence, Elizabethan Playhouse, and Government Regulation of Elizabethan Drama.

Research Tips

• Citation help needed? Try OWL (Online Writing Lab) for Chicago/Turabian, MLA, and APA styling formats. 
• Search by subject: Once you have located one item in the catalog, you can click on the search term within the record to find other items on the same or similar subjects. Once you have located a helpful source, additional potential sources may be found in the item's bibliography.
• Can't find what you need in the PHC collection? If you are unable to locate an item in the PHC collection, you may request resources through Interlibrary loan. ILL requests may be made directly in the library catalog.
• Research assistance is available in the library or by email at askalibrarian@phc.edu

Created: Dr. Bonnie Libby/Thornhill, 2010, 2011. Last update: Thornhill, 2023.