Oxford University Press To Illuminate Shakespeare In 2016

Press Release

As part of the 2016 global 'Shakespeare 400' year, Oxford University Press (OUP) is making a wealth of resources freely available in a new website.


For centuries, OUP has been publishing much of the finest Shakespeare scholarship in the world, at every level from school texts to scholarly research. The result is a treasure trove of resources including print and online scholarship; books for general readership; Complete Works and individual play texts; journal articles; linguistic analysis; teaching materials for schools; and choral compositions. Launched today, the 'Illuminating Shakespeare' website www.oup.com/shakespeare curates this content in a series of monthly themes, with material designed to interest and inform students, school teachers, academics, playgoers - anyone who wants to explore Shakespeare's works and life.


As Sophie Goldsworthy, Editorial Director at OUP explained: "Oxford has an unmatched line-up of Shakespearean scholarship, online and off, from prestigious scholarly editions to Very Short Introductions, biographies to Oxford World's Classics texts, via a broad range of rich content in book and journal forms. We are very excited, too, about the launch of the New Oxford Shakespeare in autumn 2016, which promises to be the standard-bearer for future generations of scholars, teachers, readers, and performers. We're delighted to be able to open up such a wealth of content to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, and have taken great pleasure in both delving into the archives and commissioning anew to underline the continued relevance of Shakespeare's works to readers of all kinds."


Each month's theme is introduced with an exclusive new video essay by a leading Shakespearean, such as Columbia's Julie Crawford, The Shakespeare Institute's Michael Dobson, The Globe's Farah Karim-Cooper, KCL's Gordon McMullan, Florida State's Gary Taylor, GWU's Ayanna Thompson, and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's Stanley Wells. New blog articles by experts develop the themes further, and for higher level research, selected articles from OUP's journals and online scholarship are made free for 2016.


Infographics, quizzes, and an online Shakespeare dictionary also provide stimulating resources for study and enjoyment.

Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford is academic adviser to the project. She commented: "I'll be delighted to direct students to this resource during the course of 2016. So much existing Shakespeare material on the internet is, unfortunately, outdated or mad or both! Here we have peer-reviewed and recent material by scholars at the top of their game, curated with new material to help beginning and more advanced Shakespeareans explore the works."