The Arden Encyclopedia of Shakespeare's Language

The Encyclopedia of Shakespeares Language is a two-volume encyclopedia that provides a comprehensive account of Shakespeare's language using computational methods from corpus linguistics. Volume 1 is a dictionary from A-M, focusing on the use and meanings of Shakespeare's words, while Volume 2 is a dictionary from N-Z. Internal comparisons reveal how Shakespeare's language varies dynamically across his works, showing whether certain words are peculiar to tragedies, comedies, histories, or social groups, and the stylistic flavour of words.

Format: Mixed media product
Publication date: 24 August 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

The Encyclopedia of Shakespeare's Language is a two-volume encyclopedia that provides the first comprehensive account of Shakespeare's language using computational methods derived from corpus linguistics, which are the methods of choice for today's lexicographers. Volume 1 is a dictionary from A-M that focuses on the use and meanings of Shakespeare's words, both in the context of what he wrote and in the context in which he wrote. Every word is compared with a 321 million word corpus comprising the work of Shakespeare's contemporaries. The volume establishes in detail both what is unique about Shakespeare's language and what Shakespeare's language meant to his contemporaries, including their attitudes towards love or death, what it meant to be Welsh or a harlot, or even the significance of eating fish as opposed to beef. Volume 2 is a dictionary from N-Z that follows the same format as Volume 1. Internal comparisons reveal how Shakespeare's language varies dynamically across his works, showing, for example, whether certain words are peculiar to tragedies, comedies, or histories, and/or to certain social groups, such as people of high or low social rank, men or women, and they show the stylistic flavour of words, for example, whether a word is literary or colloquial.

Weight: 2026g
Dimension: 195 x 260 x 58 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350017955