The Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations (Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations (Cloth)) [Hardcover]

William Shakespeare (Author), Jane Armstrong (Compiler)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1999 | ISBN-10: 0174436459 | ISBN-13: 978-0174436454

In this addition to the Arden Shakespeare series, approximately 3000 quotations, both familiar and little-known, are drawn from throughout Shakespeare's work, both plays and poems. Quotations are selected for their intrinsic interest and organised by topic, as being both user-friendly and stimulating for the casual reader, with speaker and play reference, and with some annotation to give a context to the quotation. Included are: a Shakespeare biography; a chronology of plays; a keyword index; and selections from Arden glossary.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The most frequently quoted (and misquoted) writer in the English language is well served by this compact collection of more than 3,000 quotations from his plays and poems, indexed by keyword, topic, and play title. Additional features include a glossary and a brief biography of the Bard. The text used is the 1998 Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, long a favorite of students as well as performers. The entries are arranged by topic, from Absence to Youth, and presented alphabetically by play title under each category. The act, scene, and line are indicated, as are the speaker and, when the excerpt is other than a soliloquy, the character spoken to. You may well ask, “Why another book of Shakespeare quotations?” In this case the question should be, “Why not?” With its modest price and carefully constructed indexes, The Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations is the place to “brush up your Shakespeare.” Smaller library collections that might not be able to afford other compilations of Shakespeare quotes would find this title a useful addition, and larger collections might want to add a circulating copy as well as one for reference use. --Carolyn Mulac --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

"The most frequently quoted (and misquoted) writer in the English language is well served by this compact collection of more than 3,000 quotations from his plays and poems, indexed by keyword, topic, and play title. Additional features include a glossary and a brief biography of the Bard.  The text used is the 1998 Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, long a favorite of students as well as performers...With its modest price and carefully constructed indexes, The Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations is the place to 'brush up your Shakespeare.'"—Booklist

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 396 pages
• Publisher: Arden Shakespeare (November 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0174436459
• ISBN-13: 978-0174436454
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,077,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #73 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Welsh
  • #91 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Irish

More About the Author

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King's New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers." Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later under James I, called the King's Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain's Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare's plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting & Useful Dictionary of Shakespeare's Themes., June 12, 2001

By 

tepi "tepi" - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations (Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations (Paper)) (Paperback)

THE ARDEN DICTIONARY OF SHAKESPEARE QUOTATIONS. Compiled by Jane Armstrong. 396 pp. London : Thomson Learning, 2000 (1999).

The present compilation contains 3000 quotations, both well-known and lesser-known, from Shakespeare's plays and poems. The quotations vary in length from short sentences such as "For he was great of heart," through to longer passages such as Hamlet's soliloquy, "To be or not to be," which can run to almost a page or more. Most quotations, however, are quite short, and many consist only of "a strikingly expressed thought or resonant phrase" such as "Do you smell a fault?"

Speaker, addressee, and act/scene/line references are keyed to the Arden Shakespeare series, and some are followed by brief annotations which help clarify the context. The book is rounded out with a 4-page Life of Shakespeare; a 12-page Glossary; an extensive 45-page Keyword Index; and an Index of References to Plays.

In her Preface, Editor Jane Armstrong writes that, as in "the 'commonplace books' in which Shakespeare's contemporaries recorded memorable extracts from their reading," her book has been organized by topic - e.g., ABSENCE, DESIRES, GUILT, HASTE, LOVE - since she feels that this "often clearly reveals the concentration round a subject in a particular play; and ... sometimes shows ideas recurring through Shakespeare's work, either in similar form or in a progression from the more straightforwardly expressed to the increasingly complex and embedded" (pp. xi-xii).

The book, in other words, has been designed to serve a twofold purpose - primarily as a commonplace book or compilation of themes, and only secondarily as a dictionary - and because it contains only 3000 quotations readers are occasionally not going to find what they may be looking for.

I was surprised, for example, to discover that a key line from 'Titus Andronicus' - "When will this fearful slumber have an end?" - has not been included. In fact, SLUMBER doesn't even appear as a topic, since the single line containing it has been subsumed under SLEEP. I was also, until I carefully read Armstrong's Preface, surpised to find that, although there are twenty "heart" quotations, HEART itself does not appear as a topic.

To locate the line "For he was great of heart," which has been included under the topic NOBILITY, you will have to search the Keyword Index. In other words, if you are searching for a particular line you should FIRST CHECK THE KEYWORD INDEX, since the book has not been arranged as a dictionary of words but as a commonplace book of topics or themes, and a more accurate (and less misleading) title for it would have been 'The Arden Commonplace Book of Shakespeare Quotations' or 'The Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare's Themes.'

A truly complete 'dictionary' that would perfectly satisfy all readers and in which we would all find all of our favorite passages and lines could of course only take the form of a rearrangement of Shakespeare's complete works, something clearly impracticable in a handy-sized book of just 396 pages.

Within its limits, and given its aims, I've found that in use the Arden compilation is an interesting book that does a fairly good job on the whole. Many of my favorite lines are there, though others aren't, but in compensation I've been guided to interesting new lines and have enjoyed exploring certain themes. The main frustration I've encountered is that many passages seem too truncated, and I would have liked to have seen more of the poetic context. But this of course would have meant a much larger book.

The book is bound in a decorative glossy wrapper, stitched, well-printed on good thin paper, and is quite a handsome production. As a small 8vo in size (8 by 5 inches) it's not too big, has a nice look and feel to it, and is easy to consult and read. Although it isn't perfect (what is?), I'd say it's a useful (though occasionally frustrating) reference that will also provide interesting browsing material for the Shakespeare enthusiast.

In sum, this is a book with many attractive features, but don't expect to find everything you look for in it : only a Complete Shakespeare or perhaps something like the Schmidt Lexicon could provide that. And to avoid the possibility of confusion, don't forget to read Jane Armstrong's Preface, in which she makes it perfectly clear that this book is _not_ primarily a dictionary of words. It's intended to be something more interesting!

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good Bargain, May 28, 2001

By 

sweetmolly (RICHMOND, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations (Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations (Paper)) (Paperback)

The price is right for this well-indexed, well-organized reference. It boasts 3,000 entries and all are in a logical context. The print is adequately sized and the margins are wide. There are no annotations, which would have been helpful.

My problem with the book is the selection of quotes. Many famous quotes do not appear, and some very obscure ones do. It could be the authors wanted to stay off the beaten track, and draw attention to the less familiar. The result is quotes you don't particularly want to quote. It seems as if a computerized word-search was done, and this was the outcome.

Surprisingly, there are not too many Shakespearian Quotation Dictionaries available. If you wish to have such a reference, you will not find many alternatives. I would give Arden's a lukewarm recommendation in that it could fulfill a need, and there are not many choices.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Shakespearean quotation book out there!, October 13, 2000

By 

Marilyn (Iowa, Midwest USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations (Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations (Paper)) (Paperback)

This book is well-organized, nicely printed with the headings in large bold letters. This makes finding a quote under a specific topic easy. I am using it for my college Shakespeare class. BUY THIS BOOK over any of the others.