If you have any questions or requests for assistance regarding your research, please contact your Teacher Librarians.
This pathfinder has been created to support the Year 11 Literature study of Hamlet.
It includes resources on the background of the life and times of Shakespeare and Elizabethan theatre, as well as resources to support close analysis of the play.
Use your search terms in the library catalogue to discover more resources.
Non-Fiction Print Resources
Below is a small selection of relevant print resources. You can locate these using the shelf Call No indicated. You will also find more resources by searching the Library Catalogue.
822.33 D
Shakespeare’s Life and Times
Presents the life of the English author and explores the government, society, and theatre of the times. Highly recommended.
This resource unravels the history, themes and language of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets.
You will find a commentary of Hamlet in it’s context.
- Provides information on Shakespeare’s life and Elizabethan drama, his greatest plays, poems and songs, and his use of language. It includes a guide to his plays, a Who’s who in the world of Shakespeare, and a glossary of Shakespearean words and characters.
- It also contains a selection of recommended websites to find out more. You can access the up-to-date links at Usborne Quicklinks.
This book provides a brief history, background to the plays, and some critical analysis to those plays.
942.055
Elizabethan England
This book explores key historical issues during the reign of Elizabeth I.
792. 0942
Shakespeare’s Theatre
The author explains how the social and political climate in Britain gave rise to the genre, and also discusses the building of theaters, Elizabethan audiences, and the lives of playwrights and actors.
This book provides information about the origin and history of the Globe Theater.
822.33 S7
Hamlet – Reading the Play
Both of the texts allow you to read the complete text of Hamlet on the left with a side-by-side easy-to-understand translation on the right.
822.33 S8
Hamlet – Critical analysis
Each of these books provide a detailed analysis of the play and include information about the historical, social and cultural contexts, themes, characters, dramatic and poetic techniques used in the play, different interpretations, critical approaches to the play and lots more. You will find other similar texts on the shelf at 822.33 S8.
Articles from Online Databases
Use your keywords to search the Online Databases. Below are the most relevant database titles for this task.
Bloom’s Literature
EBSCO : Literary Reference Center
EBSCO: Australian New Zealand Reference Center
Websites
You can search for suitable websites in the library catalogue. They have been critically evaluated by your teacher librarians and found to be suitable for student research. Here is just one of them discovered via the library catalogue:
Mabillard, A. (2014). Shakespeare online. Retrieved July 27, 2015 from http://www.shakespeare-online.com/
Please note: If you use the free internet find other websites make sure to critically evaluate the website to assess whether or not it is suitable for your academic work. You can use the document “Thinking critically about web information” to help you. Or to make it even easier to find websites use the library catalogue.
Videos
Branagh, K., & Barron, D. (1996). William Shakespeare’s Hamlet [Video]. London : Castle Rock Entertainment. Retrieved from ClickView database.
There are many other video’s in ClickView related to Hamlet.
Search the library catalogue and filter the results by video to find them.