Literary Criticism Research Guide

Literary criticism is the analysis, evaluation, description or critique of novels, short stories, dramas, and poems. This guide is designed to help students find quality information for literary criticism in print, electronic databases and on the Internet. If you need additional help in your research, Ask a Librarian.

Searching the Library Catalog

Search our library catalog for circulating books, reference books, DVDs, CDs, print journals and magazines. 

If our library does not have a book that fits your needs, consider searching Other Libraries' Catalogs. Once you find a book in another library, ask us to order it for you through interlibrary loan (usually takes 1 week). We also have a reciprocal borrowing agreement with several college libraries that allow our students to check out books using an up-to-date Moraine Valley student identification card.

When searching for books by an author like Mark Twain in the PAC, perform an author search typing the last name first (e.g., Twain, Mark). To find books about Mark Twain, type first name fist (e.g. Mark Twain).   Realize that criticism about Mark Twain might be found in a chapter of a more general work, such as a book about American authors.

Reference Works

Many reference works in literature give criticisms of works of novelists, poets, playwrights, short-story writers, and other creative writers. Reference works also provide bibliography citations that lead to other information on a topic or lists of works by an author and where you can find them.

Gale Reference Books

The Moraine Valley library owns many of the multi-volume reference works published by Gale for your use in researching literary criticism and author biographies. The easiest way to use these reference books is to consult the Gale online index and search by author or title (choose "Match words exactly" in title searches) to locate a list of article and chapter citations published in Gale Reference books. Then, from the list of citations, write down the articles in the Gale books and volumes this library owns (see below). With this information you can go to the volumes on the shelves to find the article. We highly recommend you use these valuable, convenient resources in your research.

Gale Literary Reference books owned by Moraine Valley library:

• African-American Writers
• American History through Literature 1820-1870 
• American History through Literature 1870-1920
• American Writers
• British Writers
• Contemporary Literary Criticism
• Contemporary Novelists
• Contemporary Poets
• Contemporary Women Poets
• Contemporary World Writers 
• Gay and Lesbian Literature
• Hispanic Literature Criticism
• Latin American Writers
• Latino and Latina Writers
• Literature and Its Times
• Modern American Women Writers
• Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism
• Shakespeare's Characters for Students
• Short Story Criticism
• Twentieth Century Literary Criticism

Gale Literary Reference collections from online databases:

• Drama for Students
• Poetry for Students
• Shakespeare for Students
• Short Stories for Students
• Novels for Students

Ethnic or National Focus

• African-American Writers
• American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies
• Ancient Writers: Greece and Rome
• British Writers
• Contemporary American Women Poets
• Hispanic Literature Criticism
• Latin American Writers
• Latino and Latina Writers
• Modern American Literature
• Modern American Women Writers
• Modern British Literature
• Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors
• Native American Literatures - An Encyclopedia of Work, Characters, Authors, and Themes
• Survey of Contemporary Literature
• The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature
  

Poetry

• Contemporary Poets
• Contemporary Women Poets
• Critical Survey of Poetry
• Guide to American Poetry Explication
• Guide to British Poetry Explication
• Poetry Explication
• Poetry For Students

Drama

• Critical Survey of Drama English Language Series
• Drama Criticism
• Drama for Students
• Drama Criticism Index
• Guide to Critical Reviews
• McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama

Short Story

• Critical Survey of Short Fiction and Revised edition
• Short Stories for Students
• Short Story Criticism

Novels

• Critical Survey of Long Fiction: Foreign Language Series Novels for Students
• Novels for Students
• Survey of Science Fiction Literature

Plot Summaries

• Masterpieces of World Literature in Digest Form 
• Masterplots
• Masterplots Revised Edition 
• Masterplots II, African-American Literature Series 
• Masterplots II: American Fiction Series
• Masterplots II: Short story series 
• 20th Century Plays in Synopsis 
   

Magazine and Journal Articles from Online Databases

Magazine and Journal articles are one of the best sources for literary criticism. Use the library's online databases to search for articles. Many of the articles are available in full text and can be read online. For others you may have to use the citations in the database to locate the print article in our collection or to order a copy free through interlibrary loan. To use these database from home follow the directions on this link.

• Academic Search Complete: Provides full text for over 4,650 academic, social sciences, humanities, general science, education, and multicultural journals. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for over 8,200 journals. Database coverage is 1984 to the present.
• Expanded Academic ASAP: Provides full-text coverage of 2,089 journal titles and citations/abstracts for articles for 1,500 additional journal titles. Database coverage is 1980 to the present.
• JSTOR: Provides full-text scholarly articles.  Narrow by discipline.
• Literary Index to Gale Publications: Index to Gale literary criticism books.  The library owns many but not all.  See Gale Literary Reference collections owned by MVCC library for list.
• MLA International Bibliography: The Modern Language Association's online tool to scholarly research in literature, writing, and language.

World Wide Web Links to Literary Criticism

General

• Internet Public Library: Online Literary Criticism Collection --links to critical and biographical websites. Can be searched by author, title, nationality, and literary period.

American and British

• PAL: Perspectives in American Literature A Research and Reference Guide: Links to literary movements and major and minor authors.
• American Authors --information on authors, timeline (stops at 1920), literary movements, and American literature sites.
• American Authors on the Web Links: Arranged chronologically, provides information on authors and their works. Also has an index for general resources on American literature.
• British and Irish Authors: Arranged chronically, provides information on authors and their works.
• The Victorian Web: Biography, themes, social history, imagery and related resources are among the links provided for over 70 Victorian authors including the Brontes, Thackery, Eliot and Wilde.

Poetry

• Modern American Poetry: Links to criticism on American modern poets
• Poets.org: Essays on poetry, biographies of more than 200 poets, text of nearly 600 poems, and RealAudio of eighty poems read by their authors"
• Twentieth Century Poetry in English: Links to over 150 poets. Many links provide bibliographic and biographic information. Also, links to poetry related sites.

Women's Literature

• Celebration of Women's Writers: "Comprehensive listing of links to biographical and bibliographical information about women writers, and complete published books written by women." Can access by name, date, country, and ethnicity.
• Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers and Artists of Color:   Provides biographic, bibliographic and criticism information about woman writers of color in North America
• Domestic Goddesses: Links to biographic information and literary criticism on the following "domestic" woman writers who wrote between 1830-1920: Alcott, Cather, Chopin, Gilman, Glaspell, Hale, Hopkins, Jewett, Stowe, Warner, and Wharton.
• Women Writers: Index linking to women writers (includes early modern, 19th century, 20th century fiction and non-fiction)

Shakespeare

• Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet: Comprehensive site covering all aspects of Shakespeare and his works including criticism and biographic information
• Encyclopedia Britannica Presents Shakespeare and the Globe: Then and Now: Divided into subdivisions including Shakespeare, The Plays, The Elizabethan Context, Special Features, The Globe, Biographies, as well as related links.

Citing Sources research guide is designed to support students writing research papers.
Note: When using an article reprinted in one of the Gale literary reference books, one must cite the original article as it appeared in the Gale publication. Here is an example of how to cite such an article found in Contemporary Literary Criticism:

• Presley, Delma Eugene. "The Search for Hope in the Plays of Tennessee Williams," Mississippi Quarterly, 25  (1971), 31-43. rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism, vol. 111. Jeffrey W. Hunter ed. Detroit: Gale, 1999, 379-384.

Updated 2\20\2013 by Marea Kahn