Overview
This dictionary is the first comprehensive description of Shakespearean
original pronunication (OP), enabling practitioners to deal with any
queries about the pronunciation of individual words. It includes all the
words in the First Folio, transcribed using IPA, and the accompanying
website hosts sound files as a further aid to pronunciation. It also
includes the main sources of evidence in the texts, notably all spelling
variants (along with a frequency count for each variant) and all rhymes
(including those occurring elsewhere in the canon, such as the Sonnets
and long poems). An extensive introduction provides a full account of
the aims, evidence, history, and current use of OP in relation to
Shakespeare productions, as well as indicating the wider use of OP in
relation to other Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, composers from the
period, the King James Bible, and those involved in reconstructing
heritage centres.
It will be an invaluable resource for producers, directors, actors, and
others wishing to mount a Shakespeare production or present
Shakespeare's poetry in original pronunciation, as well as for students
and academics in the fields of literary criticism and Shakespeare
studies more generally.