INTRODUCTION

This Subject Guide describes a few of the Auraria Library's resources for American and English literary study. Check our catalog Skyline , or browse the P to PZ areas to find additional materials. The Library of Congress Subject Headings lists the call number ranges for literature. For additional help or any questions, ask at the reference desk or contact a literature subject specialist .

PERIODICAL DATABASES AND INDEXES

Use databases and printed indexes to locate information in journals.

MLA Bibliography 1963-present. Indexes critical literary and language scholarship and provides access to over 4,000 journals and serials published worldwide, as well as books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies. Provided by Modern Language Association.

Expanded Academic Index ASAP   1980-present. A general index with material on different topics, with many literary journals indexed.  Includes full-text articles. It covers 1980 through the present.

Arts & Humanities Search 1980-present.  An index to over 1,300 leading arts and humanities journals.  

JSTOR is an online archive of full text journals in anthropology, archaeology, ecology, history, language and literature, economics, ecology, mathematics, philosophy, political science, and population studies. It usually covers the beginning issues of a publication until 5 years before the present.

Project Muse is an online collection of full-text scholarly articles which cover the most recent five years or so.

Click here for additional recommended databases.

For older or additional material, the following print indexes are available:

MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles in the Modern Languages and Literatures .   New York:  Modern Language Association. Auraria owns 1922-1994. INDEX P1.M642 An index to the year's criticism in languages and literatures. Both books and journal articles are indexed, as well as collections and festschriften . Book I: English and American Literature; Book II:  European, Asian, African, and South American literatures; Book III: Linguistics; Book IV: General literature and related topics; Book V: Folklore. Each year's volume is arranged by literature and by time period. There are subject and author indexes.   

Humanities Index . New York: H.W. Wilson. Auraria owns 1974–1999 . INDEX A13.H853 Indexes magazines in humanities related fields. Formed when Social Sciences and Humanities Index split into two indexes .

Social Sciences and Humanities Index. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1907–74. INDEX H1.S62 A forerunner of Humanities Index . Covers the same material as Humanities Index as well as material in the social sciences.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Biographies give information about the life and works of an author

Contemporary Authors A bio-bibliographical guide to current writers in fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television, and other fields. Provides complete biographical and bibliographical references for more than 90,000 authors in the U.S. and around the world.  There is a large printed version of Contemporary Authors located at REF PN771.C622 (Detroit: Gale).

Dictionary of Literary Biography . Detroit: Gale, 1978–  . PS129.D47 A multivolume set which contains biographical and critical sketches of authors from all countries and eras. Each volume has a theme and includes authors with a genre or time period in common. Entries are arranged alphabetically by author. Every volume contains a cumulative index to the prior volumes. Examples of volumes in the set are listed below:

v. 18 Nadel, Ira B., and William F. Fredeman, eds. Victorian Novelists After 1885 .
v. 122 Lomelf, Francisco, and Carl R. Shirley, eds. Chicano Writers .
v. 296 Hansom, Paul . Twentieth Century European Cultural Theorists.

There are many biographical directories that compile authors with common gender or ethnicity. Below are just a few examples:

Hatch, Shari and Michael R. Strickland. African-American Writers: A Dictionary . REF PS 153 N5 A3444

Trudeau, Lawrence. Asian American Literature . REF PS153 A84 A82

West-Duran, Alan. Latino and Latina Writers . REF PS153 H56 L39

INFORMATION ON SPECIFIC GENRES

Some indexes, rather than indexing periodical articles, index such things as individual poems (Granger's Index to Poetry ), or material in a particular format ( Short Story Index ). Some indexes most useful to literature studies are listed below.

Grangers World of Poetry (Columbia) This is an online version of the Granger's Index to Poetry This database presents more than13,000 full-text poems and 250,000 poem citations, the latter enabling the researcher to locate poems in printed poetry anthologies. Also includes commentaries, biographies, bibliographies, and a glossary of terms. Printed Indexes are listed below. Smith, William James, and William F. Bernhardt, eds. Granger's Index to Poetry . 8th edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. REF PN1022.G7 1986 This first appeared in 1904. The seventh edition indexes poems published in collections between 1970–81; the earlier editions index earlier collections. Arranged by title and first line of poem, with a subject and author index.   

Begirt, Gary C., ed. Short Story Index . New York: H.W. Wilson, 1923–. REF Z5917.S5S35 An index to short stories appearing in collections and, starting in 1974, in selected periodicals. Arranged by author, with cross references from title and subject.   

Fiddle, Estelle A., ed. Play Index . New York: H.W. Wilson, 1949– . Z5781.P53 Indexes plays published both individually and in collections. Arranged by author with cross references from second author, title, and subject. Special features include a symbol designating a play for children or young people, the number of males and females in the cast, and whether the sets are interior or exterior.  

Interplay   An internet index to plays in collections, anthologies and periodicals. This allows you to search for a play that has not been published separately, but is available in a collection. Students may find this particularly useful.

Book Review Digest . New York: H.W. Wilson, 1905– . INDEX Z1219.C95 Book Review Digest excerpts and references reviews of both fiction and nonfiction books. Includes books in the humanities, social sciences, and general sciences. Arranged by author, with a subject and title index. Also available online in the library at the stand alone FirstSearch terminal.

DICTIONARIES, ENCYCLOPEDIAS, AND HANDBOOKS

These all purpose books define literary terms, identify fictional characters and places, and give biographical information on authors. They are valuable as sources of quick information. All are in the Reference area.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the famous dictionary which gives word histories for most words in the English Language. We have an online and a print version.
Ref. PE1625 .O87 1989  

Harmon, William, ed. A Handbook to Literature .Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice Hall, 2003. 9th ed. REF PN41 .H355 2003 Brief entries defining genres, allusions, movements, literary terms. Based on the 1936 classic by William Thrall and Addison Hibbard.   

Cuddon, J. A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory . 4th ed. Oxford ; Malden, Mass. : Blackwell, 1998. REF PN41 .C83 1998 Technical terms, literary forms, genres, groups and movements, phrases, ~isms, motifs, themes, objects such as manuscripts, and concepts such as sublime are all defined in this dictionary.  Entries range from a line or two to several pages.   

SOURCES FOR LITERARY CRITICISM

Gunton, Sharon R., and Jean C. Stine, eds. Contemporary Literary Criticism . Detroit: Gale, 1973–  REF PN771.C59 Excerpts from and references to criticism of novelists, poets, short story writers. Arranged alphabetically by author. The index volume indexes not only this entire set but two companion sets: Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism , ( REF PN 7771 G27 ); and Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism , ( REF PN 761 N5 ). Use the index volume at the end of the last set to find entries in all three sets.