SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING ABOUT SHAKESPEARE
  1. A good undergraduate Shakespeare paper should be concerned primarily with a careful and detailed analysis of a particular character, speech, exchange, scene, or theme in a particular play or plays. Your paper should also pose some kind of argument about your topic, in the sense that it should advance an idea that someone might disagree with. You are not required to use secondary literature in this paper. Your primary aim should be construct a meaningful, imaginative reading of some aspect of Shakespeare's works that stays close to the text as it develops. You should support your claims with quotations, but you should also carefully analyze those quotations. And remember, all the normal rules of composition still apply: focused thesis statement, strong topic sentences, unified paragraphs, and thorough analysis. 
  2. If you don't know how to quote verse and cite plays, see the MLA Style Manual (which includes a list of common abbreviations for Shakespeare's works).  When Shakespeare writes in verse, it is essential that you quote him writing in verse--do not turn Shakespeare's verse into prose when you quote it!  You must indicate line endings in your quotations, by using slashes in short quotations embedded in your text, or by using a block quotation format for longer quotations that precisely imitates the published form of the verse (though you don't need to include line numbers, footnotes, etc.).
  3. If you decide to use secondary literature, do not use it as a replacement for your own analysis. Secondary literature is best used as a point-of-departure for amplifying a particular point, or for introducing an idea that you plan to argue against. Be sure to use one of the standard citation formats (MLA, Chicago, APA).
  4. As you develop your close reading, use the "Using the OED" and "Rhetorical Figures" handouts to investigate and analyze particular words that might help you amplify your analysis. McDonald's Bedford Companion is also an excellent source for ideas about how to write about Shakespeare.
  5. In the case of some plays, such as Othello and King Lear, there is considerable scholarly disagreement about which version (folio or quarto) is "authoritative." You might want to develop a paper that argues for a particular preference for the play as a whole, or for a particular scene. You should begin by looking at what the Oxford Shakespeare [PR2754 .W45 1986b] editors have done with the text, and this includes consulting William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion by Wells and Taylor [PR3071 .W44 1987], and the Norton Shakespeare, by Greenblatt, which uses, but also alters in some instances, the Oxford text. Keep in mind that some of the Oxford recensions have been hotly disputed.
  6. If your paper deals with religious aspects of Shakespeare's works, be sure to use the Geneva Bible (1560) [BS170 1560a] as your source for quotations from scripture.
  7. If you decide allude to film or stage versions (or adaptations) of Shakespeare's plays, make sure you integrate them into a focused analysis of a particular play that carefully attends to the ways in which the stage or film production alters or amplifies Shakespeare's text. A paper of this sort should go beyond a simple comparison and contrast paper--try to make a solid argument about the merits or shortcomings of a particular version or adaptation that is rooted in Shakespeare's text.
  8. If you are interested in writing about Shakespeare's plays in relation to the social and cultural context of Elizabethan and Jacobean England, Russ McDonald's Bedford Companion to Shakespeare is a good place to start looking for primary texts and contexts. But remember, Shakespeare's text is your primary concern.
  9. In addition to the above comments, see my handouts page for other information on writing about literature.
Specific writing topics:

See my study questions for each play for writing topics on specific plays.