Research Guides: English and American Literature: Literary Criticism

Using Library of Congress Subject Headings to find Literary Criticism in BobCat

Subject headings are words and phrases which constitute a "controlled vocabulary" to categorize books by subject. Subject headings often indicate the contents of books in terms that their titles do not use, which often may be very general. Subject headings in online databases are often referred to as descriptors, but they serve the same purpose in locating valuable resources. Using a "keyword" search will identify catalog entries that contain those specific terms which can add value to a search; however, the terms can be found anywhere (author, publisher, title, etc.), so your search results will be less targeted if you use keywords than if you search for subject headings or descriptors.

Use general subject headings for searching a broad topic or more specific subject headings for a specific text, film, or play. You will find (more) headings specific to the subject category within the left-hand facets in our online catalog, BobCat. If you want to see the subject headings for a specific title, click on the "details" link in the title record.

Critical works are classified and sorted by author's name, dates of birth and death, and the subheading, Criticism and Interpretation. Here are some examples:

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 - Criticism and interpretation
Morrison, Toni - Criticism and interpretation
Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892 - Criticism and interpretation

Literary Criticism via General / Multi-Disciplinary databases

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR provides access to scholarly journals, primarily in the humanities and social sciences. In addition to journal articles, users can access book chapters, ebooks, and primary source documents.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
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Provides full-text access to high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Central is a large, multidisciplinary database with over 11,000 titles, with over 8,000 titles in full-text. It serves as the central resource for researchers at all levels in all markets. Over 160 subjects areas are covered extensively in this product including business and economics, health and medical, news and world affairs, technology, social sciences and more.

Literary Criticism via Subject Specific databases

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) This link opens in a new window
The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) indexes scholarship in the fields of English language and literature, folklore, and English-language film and television studies.
Humanities Source This link opens in a new window
Humanities Source includes full text access to journals. It combines various Humanities related databases, including the American Humanities Index.
Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new window
Literature Criticism Online includes the contents of several multidisciplinary series, including Contemporary Literary Criticism and Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. The collection includes biographical essays and selected literary criticism for authors from the classical period to the present day.
Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new window
Literature Online includes full text of literary works in English from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. It also includes the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, together with biographic and bibliographic reference materials for each author.
A fully searchable library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose. LION is the single most extensive and wide-ranging online collection of English and American literature.Resources included in this resource are: Bibliographies Biographies Columbia Companion to the 20th Century American Short Story Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms Encyclopedia of African Literature Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003 Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2 vols.) Encyclopedia of the Novel Handbook of African American Literature New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Oxford Companion to Irish Literature Penguin Classics Introductions Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English (2nd Edition)
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Literature Resource Center offers biographical and other background information for research on literary topics, authors, and their works. Its coverage includes all genres and disciplines, all time periods, and all regions of the world. Literature Resource Center's content comes from the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism, and more, including full text of selected poems, plays, and short stories.
MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB) This link opens in a new window
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The MLA International Bibliography provides bibliographic records for books, book chapters, journal articles, and dissertations published in the fields of modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. Full text is available for some articles. The MLAIB covers items published from around 1920 to the present.

Guides to literature research

An Introduction to Literary Studies (4th edition) by Mario Klarer
ISBN: 9781003133025
Publication Date: 2024
Mario Klarer offers a concise and accessible discussion of central issues in English and world literature. Starting with the basics of what constitutes a literary text, the book moves through analysis of major genres, major periods, and key theoretical approaches to literature. It also looks at the practicalities of finding and referencing literature and writing a research paper.
Literary Research Guide by James L. Harner
ISBN: 9780873528085
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
James L. Harner's Literary Research Guide, which Choice calls "the standard guide in the field," evaluates important reference materials in English studies. Since the publication of the first edition in 1989, tens of thousands of students and educators have used the Guide as an aid to scholarly research. In the new edition Harner has added entries describing resources published since May 2001 and has revised nearly half the entries from the fourth edition. The fifth edition contains more than 1,000 entries, which discuss an additional 1,555 books, articles, and electronic resources and cite 723 reviews.
MLA Guide to Undergraduate Research in Literature by Elizabeth Brookbank; H. Faye Christenberry
ISBN: 9781603294362
Publication Date: 2019-05-01
What makes a good research topic in a literature class? What does your professor mean by "peer-reviewed" sources? What should you do if you can't find enough material? This approachable guide walks students through the process of research in literary studies, providing them with tools for responding successfully to course assignments.

Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism

The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism is an indispensable resource for scholars and students of literary theory and discourse. Presents a comprehensive historical survey of the field's most important figures, schools, and movements.

Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism This link opens in a new window