Reference Reviews

Reference for Students

Shakespeares after Shakespeare: An Encyclopedia of the Bard in Mass Media and Popular Culture. Edited by Richard Burt. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2007. 2 vols. 859 p. $. ISBN 10: 0-313-33116-2; ISBN 13: 978-0-313-33116-0.

The popular comic strip "Get Fuzzy" recently featured a dog visiting from England who talks "Shakespeare," demonstrating the Bard’s continued and constant infiltration into all forms of media. Students should be pleased that others have done the research to collect this information for their use because much of it was not available earlier. The computer has provided the ability to download movies and television shows, Web sites have further information, and search engines match these references to Shakespeare. Many are gathered in this volume under "Cartoons and Comic Books," "Film Adaptations," "Film Spin-Offs and Citations," "Pop Music," "Literature and Genre Fiction," "Radio," both U.S. and U.K. "Television" and "Theater." Each chapter has a lengthy introduction with notes and a bibliography. Because entries are numbered, one finds 3,819 paragraphs of information, each with information such as title, date, length, writer, artist, producer. A few black and white photographs and illustrations illustrate the text. Appendixes include "Shakespeare in Japanese Comics: Entries Play by Play," "…in Italian Television: Entries Play by Play," and "Web Resources for Shakespeare Companies and Festivals." It will take a teacher who is a true lover of Shakespeare who makes the Bard live in classes to get students to care about the resources here. But going the opposite way, it may be that starting with these resources could encourage students to be more interested. It also may point out how important it is to our culture to be able to understand the humor and this comes only with knowing about the works of Shakespeare. It is fun reading these brief entries if you do enjoy things Shakespeare.