ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how Shakespeare lexical studies have developed since the middle of the twentieth century. The importance of computers in the collection and analysis of large corpora of texts, such as the works of Shakespeare, is emphasized. Methodological problems associated with how to assess the size of Shakespeare’s active vocabulary are considered, as are recent suggestions that his vocabulary was not as large as that of some other writers. Attention is then turned to Shakespeare’s neologisms, and how recent access to a large quantity of early texts has often revealed that words previously thought to be Shakespeare inventions, have now been shown to have earlier origins. Some of the methods Shakespeare used to form new words are them considered, particularly by compounding, affixation, and functional shift. Recent methods of analysing Shakespearean metaphors are then described. Dictionaries, concordances, and glossaries completed and proposed during the period are also considered, as is the use of lexis as a tool to help solve problems of attribution.
