Reading Room - Language

E. A. Armstrong, Shakespeare's Imagination (1946) – fascinating account of he play of linguistic associations in Shakespeare's poetic writing

N. F. Blake, Shakespeare's Non-Standard English: A Dictionary of his Informal Language – a reference work, not a book to read through, but full of interesting information

G. L. Brook, The Language of Shakespeare (1976) – sound introduction

Fausto Cerignani, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation (1981) – technical but essential for the serious scholar

Wolfgang Clemen, The Development of Shakespeare's Imagery (2 nd edn, 1977) – clear survey

David and Ben Crystal, Shakespeare's Words: A Glossary and Language Companion (2002) – an A-Z glossary, but with extremely valuable 'panels' containing mini-essays on a host of language-related topics

Philip Davis, Shakespeare Thinking (2007) – brief and brilliant study of the interplay of thought and language

M. M. Mahood, Shakespeare's Wordplay (1957) – clear and elegant

Simon Palfrey, Doing Shakespeare (2004) – ingenious, playful

Patricia Parker, Literary Fat Ladies: Rhetoric, Gender, Property (1987) – highly sophisticated approach via modern literary theory as well as Renaissance rhetoric

Marion Trousdale, Shakespeare and the Rhetoricians (1982) – powerful study of an important topic; might be read after the more elementary but highly informative older study by Sister Miriam Joseph, Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language (1947)

Gordon Williams, A Glossary of Shakespeare's Sexual Language (1997) – definitive, startling

There are hundreds more fine books on Shakespeare, but anyone who reads The RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works from cover to cover and then devours a reasonable proportion of the above will have earned the right to consider themselves an exceptionally highly informed Shakespearean.