ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that how digital research tools are changing the ways in which practicing editors historicize Shakespeare's language. It also argues that scholars need to develop new editorial strategies and platforms that make the historical cultural resonances of words intelligible to readers in digital environments. The book illustrates some of the benefits of systematically consulting well-established existing digital research tools for language study. It provides standard accounts of Shakespeare's contributions to broad patterns of language use in Early Modern English. The book shows that how the availability of digital resources is or should be affecting our approaches to editing early English texts. It describes the rapprochement of digital databases and densely encoded editions. The book also provides a convergence of the digital tool and the digital edition.
