Quoting Shakespeare in your essay

      The evidence that you will bring to bear in your essay will, with a few possible exceptions, come from the Shakespeare play under study. When referring to Shakespeare's plays in your essay, the play's title should always be underlined or italicized. It is not put in quotation marks.

      Always try to be as specific as possible in your references to the play you are arguing about. When appropriate, quote directly from the play to support your point. The quotation itself is identified by act, scene, and line, not by page number. Do not, on the other hand, quote huge passages; these take up too much space in a short essay and are better summarized. For example, there is no point in quoting all of Hamlet’s “to be or not to be speech.” Rather, your essay might contain a line like this:

Hamlet contemplates the implications of suicide in the “to or not to be” soliloquy (3.1.56-87).

     Similarly, do not offer an extended plot synopsis of the play under study. The person marking your essay can be assumed to have read the play and know the story. Here’s another example that might appear in a Shakespeare essay:

Hamlet returns to Elsinore with a new-found acceptance of his destiny. As he explains to Horatio, “There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow” (5.2.213-14).

     If the quotation is more than one line long, but less than four, and it is in verse, then you must show the line divisions. Here’s an example of how this is done in an essay:

When Talbot enters in the next scene, dying from a wound, his thoughts are on John, from whom he became separated in the battle: “Into the clustering battle of the French, / And in that sea of blood my boy did drench / His overmounting spirit; and there died” (4.7.13-15).

If the quotation is in prose, no line divisions are necessary. A quotation that is four lines or longer should be offset. Offset quotations do not use quotation marks. Here's how that might look in an essay:

Richard’s reaction to the desertion of his supporters is melodramatic:

For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings:

How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,

Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill’d,

All murthered—                     (3.2.155-60)

If you are confused about reference styles, note how the editors of your Shakespeare texts do it in their introductory essays.

     In your works cited page at the end of your essay, be sure to specify the edition of the play that you used. The play is listed alphabetically with the other works you consulted under the author (Shakespeare) but you must also include the name of the editor. The bibliographical entry for a single play edition might look like this:

Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Ed. Alan Brissenden. Oxford University Press:

   Oxford, 1993.

The entry for a complete works edition might look like this:

Shakespeare, William. Complete Works. Ed. Stanley Wells and Gary

   Taylor. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1986.

      Remember, if you have any questions about your essay, please see your seminar leader as soon as possible.