Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary (Volume II, N-Z)

Description

In more than 300 years of Shakespearean scholarship, only one book, the famous Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary, has investigated the meaning of every word that Shakespeare wrote. The lifetime work of Professor Alexander Schmidt of Königsberg, this book has long been the indispensable companion for every person seriously interested in Shakespeare, Renaissance poetry and prose of any sort, or English literature. It is really two important books in one. Schmidt’s set contains every single word that Shakespeare used, not simply words that have changed their meaning since the seventeenth century, but every word in all the accepted plays and the poems. Covering both quartos and folios, it carefully distinguishes between shades of meaning for each word and provides exact definitions, plus governing phrases and locations, down to the numbered line of the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare. There is no other word dictionary comparable to this work. Even more useful to the general reader, however, is the incredible wealth of exact quotations. Arranged under the words of the quotation itself (hence no need to consult confusing subject classifications) are more than 50,000 exact quotations. Each is precisely located, so that you can easily refer back to the plays or poems themselves, if you wish context. Other features helpful to the scholar are appendixes on basic grammatical observations, a glossary of provincialisms, a list of words and sentences taken from foreign languages, a list of words that form the latter part of word-combinations. This third edition features a supplement with new findings. Review: If you are serious abpout Shakespeare... - ..then you need to own the Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary. An excellent resource, I take it out to use whenever I am reading The Plays, and my knowledge of Elizabethan English has increased immeasurably! The sort of thing which, if you like this sort of thing, is something that you will like. Review: this is a lexicon -- a dictionary including every word ... - this is a lexicon -- a dictionary including every word Shakespeare ever used; invaluable, as some of the words are archaic and have no current meaning to us, while others have variable meanings that make them work on many levels in many different ways