The Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations

Arden Shakespeare Library

by Katherine Duncan-Jones (Editor)

Jane Armstrong was born and brought up in North London. She was commissioning editor for the publishers of the Arden Shakespeare, working on their literature list and founding their list in media and cultural studies. She has worked on the Arden Shakespeare for a number of years, as copy-editor, and later as editorial series manager and commissioning editor for the current Third Series. The Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations contains approximately 3,000 quotations, both familiar and little-known, drawn from throughout Shakespeare's work, both plays and poems. The result is a rich and diverse collection that testifies both to the linguistic subtlety and the psychological insight displayed by this most protean of writers. The selection ranges from single lines containing a strikingly expressed thought or phrase, to longer extracts that convey the overwhelming beauty of Shakespeare's poetry, or the fluidity and complexity of his thought. The compilation is organized by topic, and supplemented by a detailed keyword index and a full glossary of unfamiliar terms. Table of ContentsPrefaceQuotationsLife of ShakespeareGlossaryTopic IndexKeyword IndexIndex of References to Plays

Genres: Shakespeare, Reference, Fiction, Drama, Teaching

Paperback

First published October 14, 1999

About the author

Katherine Dorothea Duncan-Jones, FRSL (13 May 1941 – 16 October 2022) was an English literature and Shakespeare scholar and was also a Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge, and then Somerville College, Oxford. She was also Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford from 1998 to 2001. She was a scholar of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Reviews

[Richard]

Not really a book to read of course but it's a great piece of reference and to make you sound really clever (or maybe just hugely pretentious!).

I love the way the book is laid out and indexed for ease of reference. It's a dictionary so it's in alphabetical order of subject. For example food ('Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers'), horses (I had rather had my horse to my mistress' etc etc.

It makes you realise how bloody brilliant Shakespeare was. Most great writers might have one or two classic works, Shakespeare had perhaps ten to twenty and even the others are pretty good. Of course he was not writing for posterity. He did it for the classic reasons, money and the ladies.

Pick up this dictionary and turn to any page and find something that has either seeped into the English language and now by extension the world and just 'hits the spot.' I going to do that now:

P.128 Hunting: 'The Game is up'
p.45 Cruelty: 'I will speak daggers to her but use none'
p.275 Summer: 'Now these hot days is the mad blood stirring'
p.118 Hatred: 'In time we hate what which we often fear'

I could go on but you have lives to lead.

Shakespeare: There's a reason you might have loved or suffered him at school and kids do to this day. He is a genius. And most of his work was drama so watch it rather than reading it.

Sermon over!

[Joe Erickson]

I have been quite the Shakespeare-phile ever since high school and have always wanted to find an accurate summary of quotes. You would think there would be more available but this book is arranged well based on topic/subject, making obtaining the right quote for the right situation possible. While this was given to me as a gift from my wife and daughter, I think the price is excellent for a book of this breadth and depth. Highly recommended.

[Gelassenheit]

It's not a book you read from back to back. It's one of those you pick from time to time to savour pages or passages.
One has to truly admire Shakespear's wit or whoever wrote his plays ;)
Great stuff.

[Anna]

Wonderful quotes, very thorough keyword index, beautiful edition.

[Ms Sweetish Tema]

Could not have for a more satisfying source for everything that is Shakespearean!

[Brendan]

Has a good glossary

[Mary]

Not quite finished but a good book to dip in and out of.