How to Cite Shakespeare
MLA Format
When quoting more than one line of poetry, including Shakespeare, use the forward slash
(/) to indicate line breaks and double forward slashes (//) to indicate stanza breaks.
In your in-text citation, you include the title, act, scene, and lines. Look at these
examples from Hamlet:
Using the play’s title in YOUR lead-in (signal phrase) to the quote:
In Hamlet., Polonius has some advice for his son: “This above all: to thine own self be
true,/And it must follow, as the night the day,/thou canst not then be false to any
man”(1.3.84-86).
Using the play’s title in the parenthesis vs. YOUR lead in to the quote:
Polonius tells Laertes: “This above all: to thine own self be true,/And it must follow, as
the night the day,/thou canst not then be false to any man”(Ham. 1.3.84-86).