The Arden early modern drama guides serve as introductions to Shakespeare’s plays. Each volume focuses on a single play, and contains a timeline of the play and its most important productions, a brief stage and screen history, several original interpretative essays, resources for students, and extensive bibliography.
Some of the essays trade on academic trendiness. In the volume on Richard III, Rebecca Lemon writes about the “state of exception” in the play and David Wood examines Richard’s “disability.” The prose is jargon-ridden. Of Twelfth Night, one author writes that “Viola’s errands between Orsino’s and Olivia’s households allow her to translate her transfixing encounter with the abyss into ex-stasis performance” (130).
Still, the guides are informative, a good place to start research, especially with regard to stage history and history of interpretation. The bibliographies are up-to-date but don’t neglect older studies. The Guide to Richard III includes an annotated bibliography.
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