Featured Profiles
Article Indexes
Humanities International Index
JSTOR
Literary Reference Center
Omnifile Fulltext Select (EBSCOhost)
Academic Search Premier
ArticleFirst (OCLC FirstSearch)
ArticleFirst (WorldCat Local)
Reference
The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature
The Oxford Companion to English Literature
The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature
The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms
Style Guides
MLA Formatting and Style Guide from the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers/ Joseph Gibaldi
A Writer's Reference/ Diana Hacker
Mobile Apps & Websites
- EBSCOhost App
- Shakespeare (iTunes)
- Spreadsong.com -- Classic Books for iPods, iPads, and iPhones
- The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet (iTunes): Ground breaking visual novel told through text and hundreds of deeply detailed original drawings. Unavailable in digital form until now.
- Jack Kerouac's On the Road (iTunes): An immersive readinng experience adding videos, photos, timelines and more to the original text.
Useful Web Sites
First World War Poetry Digital Archive (Oxford University)
LES Research Competency Guidelines for Literatures in English
William Faulkner on the Web
Literature writing guide by The Writing Center at UNC Chapel Hill
The Victorian Web
New Books
After the End of History: American Fiction in the 1990s / Samuel Cohen
Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds /Lyndall Gordon
The American Novel Now: Reading Contemporary American Fiction since 1980 / Patrick O'Donnell
The Vintage Book of American Women Writers / Edited by Elaine Showalter
eBooks from EBSCOhost
War on Words: Slavery, Race, and Free Speech in American Literature/ Michael T. Gilmore
Cambridge Introduction to William Wordsworth/ Emma Mason
Tips for finding Literary Criticism
1. Identify the work and/or author to be studied.
2. Search the Library Catalog for books about the work or author. Library of Congress Subject Headings, labeled "Subject Terms" in the Catalog, can help you.
Sample Subject Terms:
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616—Biography (search for: shakespeare william biography)
Austen, Jane, 1775-1817—Criticism and Interpretation (search for: austen jane criticism)
Homer—Criticism and Interpretation (search for: homer criticism)
Biographies about authors often include significant discussions of their work. Books of literary criticism frequently discuss a range or group of authors' works. Only a chapter or portion of the book may be relevant to your research. Newer editions of classics may also include critical essays about the work.
3. Browse the shelves. Original works, books about the work, and books about the author are usually shelved together. Start by finding the call number for the original work using the Library Catalog.
4. Some works have significance to other disciplines, such as history, religion, or philosophy. Broaden your search to include books about the relevant historical period, theological issue, or other topics related to the work.
5. Broaden your search to the relevant literary period, for example classical literature. Then check tables of content and indexes to discover which of these books refer to the work you are researching.
6. Consult reference books in the Union College Library:
Bible commentaries R220s
Contemporary Authors
Contemporary Authors (New Revision Series)
Contemporary Authors (Permanent Series)
Contemporary Literary Criticism
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism