TH 385W: Dramatic Literature I: Useful reference books

Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, Revised Edition examines more than 29,000 major characters from 3,294 important works of literature. It includes the major characters from over 1,400 titles appearing in Masterplots, Revised Second Edition (1996). This comprehensive edition combines the characters profiled in Cyclopedia of Literary Characters (1963) and Cyclopedia of Literary Characters II (1990). It also includes all characters that appeared in more recent works of Masterplots II published through 1995. This revised work includes 574 articles on new titles and 84 rewritten articles, with all-new title, author, and character indexes.

This set contains in-depth analytical reference guides to the major writers of world literature. This 8 volume set contains 602 essays that discuss individual dramatists and cover overview topics. Authors covered represent all time periods and all areas of the world. Each essay contains birth and death dates, a list of the author's major dramatic works, a brief survey of the author's publications in literary forms other than drama, and a summary of the writer's professional achievements and awards. An extended biographical sketch centers on the writer's development. Following this discussion is a list of major publication in fields other than drama and an annotated bibliography of critical works about the author.

Anyone with an academic, professional, amateur, or recreational interest in the theatre is likely to want to look up details of particular plays sometimes - perhaps to check on the author, or on when they were first performed, or perhaps to see how many characters they have, and whether or notthey would be suitable for their theatre company or drama group to perform. The Oxford Dictionary of Plays provides essential information on the 1000 best-known, best-loved, and most important plays in world theatre. Each entry includes details of title, author, date of composition, date of first performance, genre, setting, and the composition of the cast, and more. Asynopsis of the plot and a brief commentary, perhaps on the context of the play, or the reasons for its enduring popularity, follow. Around 80 of the most significant plays - from The Oresteia to Waiting for Godot - are dealt with in more detail. Genres covered include: burlesque, comedy, farce,historical drama, kabuki, masque, melodrama, morality play, mystery play, No, romantic comedy, tragicomedy, satire, and tragedy. An index of characters enables the reader to locate favourite characters, and trace the trajectory of major historical and legendary characters - such as Iphigenia - through world drama, including in plays that do not have entries in the Dictionary. An index of playwrights, with dates, allows thereader to find all the plays included by a particular author.