Research Guides: English: General Literature Resources

How to Use This Research Guide

This guide is meant to assist you in getting started on your research.

Use the links below or click on the green navigation tabs to find what you need.

Below are some general literature resources to get your started on your research...

Literature Encyclopedias

Literary Encyclopedia This link opens in a new window
The Literary Encyclopedia publishes biographies of major and minor writers; scholarly descriptions of all interesting texts written by these authors, including those often neglected; and a variety of descriptive and critical essays on literary, cultural and historical matters, which provide a finer understanding of the social contexts in which this writing was produced. Offers excellent coverage of English, American, German, Russian, Italian, French and Classical literatures, as well as substantial and increasing coverage of Hispanic, Japanese, Canadian, East European and various postcolonial literatures.

The library has many volumes of Gale Literature titles, both online and in-print. Gale Literature offers the ability to search by Person, Work or Topic. Note: no new titles 2022 onward.

Gale Literature This link opens in a new window
Gale Literature – cross-search platform to simultaneously search through Dictionary of Literary Biography, Literature Criticism (Contemporary Literature Criticism and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism), Something About the Author, Contemporary Authors and other literary Gale eBook titles.

An excellent browsing tool, Gale Literature Criticism is organized by Popular Topics, Popular Works and Popular Authors:

Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new window
Gale Literature Criticism – a reference tool that offers over 1,000 discovery portals for browsing Gale literature titles, beyond what is owned by the library. Includes articles, suggested reading lists, bibliographies and other avenues for research.

General Literature Research Guide

Best Online and Print Encyclopedias

The following links will take you to encyclopedias and reference manuals to help you get started on your research. Here you can find general background information, definitions, and history on many literary terms and concepts. Searching in an encyclopedia can also help you find a topic for a paper or project.

Online

Bloom's Literary Criticism eBooks This link opens in a new window
The Bloom’s Literary Criticism eBook Collection represents a comprehensive library covering a broad selection of literary works, their authors and genres. Each title in the collection was edited by Harold Bloom, a leading American literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University.

Chambers Dictionary of Literary Characters
A very helpful (and fun!) guide on well-known literary characters spanning from the classics to present-day literature. Includes interesting subcategories like "Literary Sidekicks" and "The Ghost in Fiction."

Print

Classical Literature and Its Times
Call Number: CFL Floor 3 Book Stacks PA3003 .M67 2006
World Literature and Its Times helps students and researchers make connections between political/social climate during which books were written and the works themselves.
Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature
Call Number: Ref. PN41 .E48 1998
This encyclopedia examines the profound influence of folklore on literature. The more than 350 alphabetically arranged entries fall into four categories: writers and literary works that use folklore as a resource or source; concepts that make it easier to look at folklore and literature together; themes and characters that originated in oral literature but are also found in written literature; and scholars who have studied and contributed to the field of folklore and literature. The work concentrates on European and Western themes, including classical Greek and Roman. The introduction discusses the interest and connections between folklore.
Great Scott!
Call Number: CFL Floor 3 Book Stacks PN1995 .S419 1994
Publication Date: 1994-09-17

Finding Articles

Use databases to find academic articles to continue your research. Below are the most helpful databases for finding relevant articles for literature and literary topics. The MLA International Bibliography is the most popular, as it indexes most published works in literature. Make sure to click the "full text" option when searching if you are looking for the full article PDF.

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Subjects covered include literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory and criticism, and the dramatic arts.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
An archive of important scholarly journals, eBooks and primary sources in 75 disciplines. Offers high-resolution, scanned images of journal issues and pages as originally published.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Includes 400 scholarly journals in humanities, social sciences, and mathematics and over 50,000 ebooks primarily from university presses.
Art and Architecture Source This link opens in a new window
Literature is a frequent inspiration for many artistic works. Study those connections in more depth here.

Good Starting Journals for Literature

The following are links to specific academic journals which are published and peer-reviewed by experts in the field. If you want to narrow your search to a specific time period or genre, finding a journal that publishes in that area can help. For example, if you are writing a paper about women's representation in literature, it might be helpful to check out a journal like Women and Language.

Contemporary Literature
Focuses on contemporary literature, post-WWII until today. Other than the time period, the journal is fairly broad and covers articles on novels, short stories, poetry, graphic fiction, etc.
Journal of Modern Literature
Focuses on a broad range of literary topics from 1900 to present. Its international scope is of special interest.
Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History
Covers a broad range of literary topics "regardless of genre or period" The MLQ's main focus is literary history, so if you are looking at topics related to how literature operates, effects, and is affected by its time period, then look here.
The Modern Language Review
A fairly broad, well-respected journal that covers medieval to modern literary topics "in the languages of continental Europe, together with English (including the United States and the Commonwealth), Francophone Africa and Canada, and Latin America."
Women and Language
Features women's issues across essays, research articles, news items, inquiries, book reviews, bibliographies, and other information on topics related to women, gender, communication, and language.

Search the entire library catalog here.

Materials on Literature topics are found under the "P" subclass on the 3rd floor of the library.

PN	Literature-General
PR	English Literature
PS	American Literature

Featured Books

Looking for an interesting research topic? Currently, the featured books section holds some of the newest additions to the library's collection of texts of literary research.

Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults by Carrie Hintz (Editor); Balaka Basu (Editor); Katherine R. Broad (Editor)
Call Number: PS374.Y57 C66 2013
This collection enacts a lively debate about the goals and efficacy of YA dystopias, with three major areas of contention: do these texts reinscribe an old didacticism or offer an exciting new frontier in children's literature? Do their political critiques represent conservative or radical ideologies? And finally, are these novels high-minded attempts to educate the young or simply bids to cash in on a formula for commercial success? This collection represents a prismatic and evolving understanding of the genre, illuminating its relevance to children's literature and our wider culture.
The Creation of the Cowboy Hero
Call Number: PN1995.9.W4 A519 2015
As business interests have commercialized the American West and publishers and studios have created a compelling image of the West, the expectations of readers and moviegoers have influenced public perception of the cowboy as a hero figure. This book describes the evolution of the Western cowboy hero as a mythic persona created by dime novels, television and Hollywood.
Narrative, Emotion, and Insight by John Gibson (Editor); Noël Carroll (Editor)
Call Number: P302.7.N3666 2011
While narrative has been one of the liveliest and most productive areas of research in literary theory, discussions of the nature of emotional responses to art and of the cognitive value of art tend to concentrate almost exclusively on the problem of fiction: How can we emote over or learn from fictions? Narrative, Emotion, and Insightexplores what would happen if aestheticians framed the matter differently, having narratives—rather than fictional characters and events—as the object of emotional and cognitive attention. The book thus opens up new possibilities for approaching questions about the ethical, educative, and cultural value of art. The nine essays in this volume introduce the study of narrative to contemporary aesthetics.