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Shakespearean Criticism
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Located in Reference
Call Number
REF
822.33D/h.24-S
V.8
Use volumes marked Cumulative Index; covers all the volumes that precede it.
Search in topic by play index.
3 steps to finding criticism
•  1. USE Index - topic by play. Find
volume and pages relating to your topic.
•  2. Locate volume, Read abstract OR
Skim the article
•  3.Copy article & citation for works cited.
(Articles are reprinted from scholarly
journals.)
1. Sample index
Richard Ill (Volumes 8, 14, 39, 52, 62, 73, 84)
topic
allegorical elements 52: 5; 62: 60; 73: 164
ambivalence and ambiguity 44: 11; 47: IS
Conscience 8: 148, 152, 162. 165, 19(1, 197.
201, 206, 210, 228, 232, 239, 243. 252,
258; 39: 341; 52: 5. 196, 205; 73: 164,
224
Elizabeth 84: 199
Elizabethan culture, relation to 62: 66; 84:
241; 94: 67, 92, 102
Elizabethan politics, relation to 22: 395; 25:
141; 37: 144: 39: 345, 349; 42: 132:
52: 201, 214, 257; 62: 2; 84: 247; 94:
67
evil 52: 78; 84: 62; 94: 38
Bold = Volume #
Pages
w/in
volume
2. Sample summary
• 
SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICiSM, Vol. 8
RICHARD III
• 
BERNARD SPIVACK (essay date 1958)
• 
[In his Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil (1955), Spivack relates the traditions of
late medieval drama to the characterizations of Shakespeare’s major villains. He also
discusses those dramatic techniques of the Elizabethan stage that reflect its transition
from the conventions of medieval allegory to the naturalism of modern drama
suggesting that such knowledge might he/p to explain some of the major problems
critics encounter in Shakespeare s works. In the following excerpt from this study,
Spivack explores the relationship between Richard III, as portrayed by Shakespeare,
and the traditional ‘‘Vice’’ figure who often ap-peared in the morality plays of the
Middle Ages.
3. Citation information
• 
• 
• 
RICHARD III SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM, Vol.
8
His weeping and laughter do not by themselves
establish the archaic source of Richard’s
performance, but they confirm it, alongside his other
unmistakable tricks of language and be-havior. The
dominant trait in his descent appears in the unnaturalistic dimension of his role, in the repetitious
and gratuitous deceit surviving out of the old
Christian metaphor, in the homiletic method of the
timeless personification. It is the inspirational force
of the method itself that gives birth to Rich-ard’s
wooing of Lady Anne, for which there is no hint in
the chronicles. …
Bernard Spivack, “The Hybrid Image in
Shakespeare” in his Shakespeare and the
Allegory of Evil, Columbia University Press.
1958, pp. 379-414.
Citation found at
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Citing sources – MLA format
SCHOLARLY EXCERPT from a book or article in a collection:
To cite a previously published scholarly article in a collection, give
the complete data for the earlier publication and then add Rpt. in
("Reprinted in"), the title of the collection and the new publication
detail.
Example:
Spivak, Bernard. “The Hybrid Image in Shakespeare.” Shakespeare
and the Allegory of Evil. New York, Columbia University Press,1958.
pp. 379-414. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Mark W. Scott.
Vol. 9. Detroit: Gale, 1989. 213-218.
Use EasyBib or Noodletools for help with citation formatting
Other Sources
for
literary criticism
•  Library databases e.g. JSTOR , EBSCO
OPAC – Play title as subject
Shakespeareartmusem.com