I once wrote a paper comparing the character of Hotspur (from Henry IV, part 1) to Hamlet and got an A because my professor though the comparison was just too weird (Hotspur is all about action and Hamlet is deliberate) but he was entertained by my argument. I was thinking about that as I surfed around looking for resources students can use for writing papers these days. Who needs Cliff Notes?Shakespeare Online is kind of an ugly site but it's really entertaining. The home page features something called "Bard Bite" which is a Shakespeare trivia question. (Today's is a question about what Edwin Booth thought was teh worst rhyming exit in all of the plays.) The landing page offers fodder for at least a dozen term papers and it changes daily.
Absolute Shakespeare is another basic-looking site that includes study guides and trivia and summaries and all sorts of other info in a matter-of-fact all text format. Their list of Shakespeare films is way out of date (it ends with the Ethan Hawke version of Hamlet from 2000) but the rest of the material is still relevant.
Mr. Shakespeare and the Internet is a livelier looking site that has two goals--to be an annotated guide to scholarly Shakespeare resources; and to provide material not available anywhere else (like a timeline). They also have a store that will link you to DVDs of great Shakespeare plays (including a recording a performance of Macbeth by Patrick Stewart).
