The "Cobbe Portrait" of Shakespeare, circa 1610. Public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons
John Wilkes Booth, Edwin Booth, and Junius Booth Jr.in Julius Caesar, 1864. Piblic domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons
The Gumberg Library has a rich collection of books on Shakespeare, his life, plays, and poems. Below are examples of some of the basic sorts of DUQSearch online catalog searches that students researching Shakespeare and his works will want to perform. The online catalog can be searched in other ways than these. Give these kinds of searches a try and if you do not find what you need, click Ask Gumberg to get help from a reference librarian.
All of the searches demonstrated below use the DUQSearch Advanced Search. You can access the DUQSearch Advanced Search through the link under the search box in the middle of the library homepage.
By default, a DUQSearch search will return a mixture of printed books, eBooks, and articles from a selection of Gumberg Library databases. If you wish to exclude the articles and only see books in your search results, after you enter your search terms in the search boxes, scroll down and check the box in front of this limiter:
Find Works By Shakespeare
Once you get to the DUQSearch Advanced Search screen, the best way to find a work written by Shakespeare is to do an Author/Title search.
In the first search box type the name "Shakespeare" and then pull down the menu to the right of the box and change it to "Author." In the second search box, type the name of the work you are interested in finding and change the menu to the right of the search box to "Title." Click Search to run your search.
Find Works About Shakespeare's Life
If you want to find books about the life of Shakespeare, on the DUQSearch Advanced Search screen, type "Shakespeare" in the first search box, and pull down the menu to the right and set it for "Subject Terms." In the second box, type the word "biography." Then pull down the menu to the right of the search box and change it also to "Subject Terms." Click the Search button to run your search.
Find Literary Criticism on a Work by Shakespeare
On the DUQSearch Advanced Search screen, type "Shakespeare" in the first search box, and choose "Subject Terms" from the menu to the right of the box. In the second box, type the title of the work about which you want to find criticism. Let's say it's Macbeth. Then pull down the menu to the right of the search box and change it to "Select a Field (optional.)" Then click the Search button.
If you want to find criticism dealing with a specific theme in a work by Shakespeare, fill in the search box as above, then type the theme in the third box and change the menu to the right of that box to "Select a Field (optional)" as well.
Find Criticism on a Theme in Shakespeare's Work
On the DUQSearch Advanced Search screen, type "Shakespeare" in the first search box. Change the menu to the right of it to "Subject Terms." Let's say you want to find literary criticism dealing with the theme of religion in Shakespeare's works. In the second search box, type "religion" and then, from the menu to the right of that search box, choose "Subject Terms" also. Then click the Search button to run the search. This search will return all catalog records with the words "Shakespeare" and "religion" in the subject headings of the books.
If you try a search like this and don't get anything, change the menu to the right of the second search box to "Select a Field (optional)" and then click on Search.
Find Criticism on a Genre of Shakespeare Play
On the DUQSearch Advanced Search screen, type "Shakespeare" in the first search box and change the menu to the right of it to "Subject Terms." Let's say you want criticism on Shakespeare's history plays. In the next search box, type "histories." Then pull down the menu to the right of that search box and choose "Subject Terms" also.
