Most of these essays grew out of Ian Lancashire's graduate course on Shakespeare's language offered at the University of Toronto in 1995-96. This course set itself the task of reading Shakespeare's plays from a Early Modern English perspective, drawing on English instructional and reference books published in the Renaissance period.
Early dictionaries have a special importance in the study of English language and literature.
They hold primary testimony about English by people who then spoke and wrote the language and document words and syntax that have since changed, sometimes in ways that cannot easily be defined. These lexicons also shed light on a view of language that has itself been lost since the late 17th century. Some researchers address language-related topics. Buick studies the vocabulary of the second volume of the Elizabethan homilies, an influence on Shakespeare's plays. All essays have been substantially revised since their delivery.