Databases and Electronic Resources
Below you'll find databases that will be most useful regarding the study of Shakespeare. For a refresher on how to search some of the more major ones, like the MLA International Bibliography and Literature Criticism Online, see our guide on Introduction to English Language Literature, which has instructions for searching the major databases.
Databases
The databases below will help you find articles and scholarly material. For all other databases associated with English Literature, please visit A-Z Databases. These are great databases to start your research.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Alternate version: MLA International Bibliography in the classic EBSCO user interface (best for exporting more than 50 results or combining saved searches).Indexes critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Proved access to citations from worldwide publications, including periodicals, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations and bibliographies.
Please note that the "Refine Search" tab reviews how to include additional databases in your EBSCO hosted database search. We recommend that you include International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance with Full Text.
- Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature This link opens in a new windowThe annual bibliography of English language and literature (ABELL) lists monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published anywhere in the world; unpublished doctoral dissertations are covered for the period 1920-1999. The bibliography consists of 80 volumes, beginning in 1920 and issued annually. A number of items published between 1892 and 1919 have been indexed retrospectively.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new windowFull-text articles from more than 200 scholarly journals in history and the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences. Disciplines covered include literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others. A brief bibliographic description of each title is given. Searches can be conducted across the full text of all journals in the database.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowProvides page images of back issues of the core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and basic sciences from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. Users may browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts. New issues of existing titles and new titles are added approximately on a weekly basis. The University of Illinois has access to the following JSTOR collections: Arts & Sciences I-XV, 19th Century British Pamphlets, Business IV, Global Plants, Hebrew Journals, Ireland, Life Sciences Collection, Lives of Literature, Security Studies, Struggles for Freedom - South Africa, Sustainability, and World Heritage Sites - Africa.
Reference Resources
Below you will find the references resources most suitable for the study of Shakespeare. Simply decide which resource meets your needs and click the appropriate link to discover a wealth of information related to Shakespeare and his work.
- Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new windowPart of Gale Literature Criticism Online. LCO covers a range of modern and historical views on authors and their works across regions, eras and genres, offering tens of thousands of hard-to-find critical essays. Database subscriptions may include any or all of the following titles, based on subscriber preferences: Contemporary literary criticism; Twentieth-Century literary criticism; Nineteenth-Century literature criticism; Literature criticism from 1400-1800; Shakespearean criticism; Classical and medieval literature criticism; Poetry criticism; Short story criticism; Drama criticism; and Children's literature review.
- Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new windowSearchable database of full-text articles, essays, book reviews, plot summaries, poems, short stories, plays, and interviews with contemporary writers.
- Shakespeare Collection This link opens in a new windowThe Shakespeare Collection contextualizes the legacy of this poet and playwright, containing a selection of over 200 prompt books (annotated working texts of stage managers and company prompters) from the 17th to 20th centuries, the extensive diaries of Shakespeare enthusiast Gordon Crosse documenting 500 UK performances from 1890 to 1953, the First Folio and Quartos, editions and adaptations of Shakespeare's works from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, more than 80 works Shakespeare is thought to have been familiar with, as well as works composed by Shakespeare's contemporaries.
- Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window9/8/23: If asked to sign in, choose "Sign in through your institution" and look for University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the list. The complete text of the 2nd edition of the Oxford English dictionary with quarterly updates, including revisions not available in any other form.
- World Shakespeare Bibliography This link opens in a new windowProvides annotated entries for all important books, articles, book reviews, dissertations, theatrical productions, reviews of productions, audiovisual materials, electronic media, and other scholarly and popular materials related to Shakespeare. Each year coverage moves forward one year and backwards at least three years.
Digital Editions and other Digitized Content
Below you will find databases and other collections that present digitized editions and other related content. Please select that resource that most appropriately addresses your research or learning needs. Please note that links to the Norton Shakespeare and the New Oxford Shakespeare appear on the LibGuide homepage.
- Shakespeare in Performance This link opens in a new windowShakespeare in Performance showcases rare and unique prompt books from the world-famous Folger Shakespeare Library. These prompt books tell the story of Shakespeare’s plays as they were performed in theatres throughout Great Britain, the United States and internationally, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.
- Early English Books Online This link opens in a new windowReproduces works listed in: Pollard & Redgrave's Short-title catalogue, Wing's Short title catalogue and Thomason tracts, online via ProQuest Direct.
- Shakespeare: Editions and Adaptations This link opens in a new windowContains eleven major editions from the First Folio to the Cambridge edition of 1863-6, twenty-four separate contemporary printings of individual plays, selected apocrypha and related works and more than one hundred adaptations, sequels and burlesques from the seventeenth, eighteeenth and nineteenth centuries.
- English Drama This link opens in a new windowContains more than 3,900 plays in verse and prose from the late thirteenth century - the likely date of the Shrewsbury Fragments - to the early twentieth. It offers exhaustive coverage of the prodigious dramatic literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, as well as Restoration plays, medieval morality plays and mystery cycles, and nineteenth-century closet dramas.