Literary Criticism Resources
The critical analysis of literature has necessitated creation of a vast number of indexes, finding aids, and other resources. Herein is a partial list of resources owned or licensed by LSU Libraries for the study of literature in all its forms. For assistance locating or using any of these resources, or if you need further help with literary research, e-mail Mike Russo.
21 Bookmarks Found with These Tags:
Indexes [X]
Arts and Humanities Citation Index
"Arts & Humanities Citation Index®, accessed via Web of Science, provides researchers, administrators, faculty, and students with quick, powerful access to the bibliographic and citation information they need to find research data, analyze trends, journals, and researchers, and share their findings. Overcome information overload and focus on essential data from over 1,395 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, as well as selected items from over 6,000 scientific and social sciences journals, with coverage available to 1975." (from Thomson Reuters)
Contemporary Literary Criticism
Middleton Reference: PN 771 C59 Holdings: v.1(1973)-v.130(2000) Scope: Presents criticism of the works of more than 2,000 of today's novelists, poets, playwrights, short story writers and other creative writers living or who died after December 31, 1999. The work includes passages from published criticism. Authors are included based on critically acclaimed work or receipt of a major award. The series also includes writers about whom criticism is hard to find, e.g., science fiction and foreign authors. Authors may be discussed in more than one volume of the series. Indexing: At the end of each volume, there are cumulative author, topic, and nationality indexes. There is a title index specific to each volume. There is also a separate cumulative title index for the entire series. Cross-indexing to other Gale publications is built into these indexes.
Epic and Romance Criticism: a Checklist of Interpretations, 1940-1972
Middleton Main Stacks: Z7156 .E6 C64 Volume one focuses on English and American Epics and Metrical Romances and Volume two focuses on Classical and Continental Epics and Metrical Romances. Entries are arranged alphabetical by title of poem. Volume one includes an index that contains nine additional titles.
Essay and general literature index
Middleton Reference: AI3 .E752 Scope: Covers man subjects in the humanities, including literature, from 1900 to 2000. This series indexes books of essays, not periodicals.Indexing: Each year is indexed separately. Each volume consists of one alphabetical author-subject-title index.
Guide to British drama explication
Middleton Reference: Z 2014 D7 D68 1996 Scope: Covers all of British drama from the beginnings to 1640. Indexing: Alphabetical by playwright.
Contains the full-text of Harper's Weekly during the Civil War era (1857-1865) and access to HarpWeek Reconstruction I (1866 - 1871). The HarpWeek Database consists of the pages of Harper's Weekly, scanned as images, together with a series of controlled-vocabulary indexes, which are interactively linked.
Middleton Reference: AI 3 H85 Library has: v.1 (1974/1975)-v.19 (1992/1993) This is a cumulative index to English language periodicals. Its scope includes language and literature. It is arranged alphabetically with author and subject entries. A separate listing of citations to book reviews is included. This index partly continues Social Sciences and Humanities Index (1965-1974), International Index (1955-1965), and International Index to Periodicals (1907-1955). All are fairly similar in arrangement and scope.
Index to American Periodicals 1700 - 1850
Two "Indexes to Early American Periodicals," covering the time periods from 1741 to 1935.
Middleton Reference: Z 5781 A1F5 Scope: Indexes 7,872 plays by 2,203 playwrights. Indexing: Each volume is divided into two indexes: an author index and a subject/title index.
Middleton Main Stacks: Z6511 .W44 1984 The work is arranged alphabetically by author and title. Most entries are author entries. It focuses on American and English Literature.
Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800
Middleton Reference: PN86 .L57 (1984-2005) Scope: The series is a critical discussion of the works of 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th century novelists, poets, playwrights, philosophers, and other creative writers. The series does not include Shakespeare. Individual authors are covered in volumes 1-12. Themes are covered in volumes 13-47. Volumes 48 et sequitur. return to the standard author entry. Organization: Each entry begins with author information, such as his or her name and pseudonyms, dates, major works, a brief biography, and, when available, a picture. This section is followed by excerpts from criticism, arranged chronologically, and fully cited. This is followed by further readings in other Gale publications. Indexing: At the end of each volume, there are cumulative author, topic, title, and nationality indexes. (There is no title index in the topics volumes.)
In 1963, a Cyclopedia of Literary Characters in two volumes was added to the series. This Cyclopedia provides thumbnail character sketches to supplement the plot summaries of some of the works covered in the previous series volumes. And then, starting in 1986, came Masterplots II, which attempted to update and expand the earlier Masterplots editions. Masterplots II comes in five smaller series: American Fiction, World Fiction, Poetry, Short Story, and European Fiction. Each of these series is indexed by title and author at the end of the last volume in the series. Scope: Masterplots, over the life of the series, summarizes works in every genre of literature, except the essay. Choices of literature are not limited to those written in English. Indexing: There is a cumulative index volume covering all the editions from 1949 to 1980. Indexing herein is by title and author.
MLA International Bibliography
Middleton Reference: Z7006 .M64 Author entries are contained within the Classified Listings section. This section is currently divided into five volumes: vol. one – British and Irish, Commonwealth, English Caribbean, and American Literatures; vol. two – European, Asian, African, and Latin American Literatures; vol. three – Linguistics; vol. four – General Literature and Related Topics; vol. 5 – Folklore. The entries are numbered according to volume. The work contains a documents author index and a subject index.
MLA International Bibliography
MLA International Bibliography is an index of journal articles, books and dissertations. Produced by the Modern Language Association, the electronic version of the Bibliography dates back to 1926. Coverage is international and subjects include literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory & criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing. Listings on rhetoric and composition and the history, theory and practice of teaching language and literature are also included. In addition, the MLA Directory of Periodicals and the association's proprietary thesaurus used to assign descriptors to each record in the Bibliography are also included. Examples of titles offered in MLA International Bibliography include: Journal of International Folklore, Journal of English and German Philology, Journal of Linguistics, Journal of Popular Film and Television, Language and Communication, Language Teaching Research, Modern Language Journal, etc.
Palmer's Index to the London Times
Spans 1790-1905. Request this item at the Reference Desk.
Scope: In Vols. 1-10, each of Shakespeare's works is discussed. Vols. 11-26 discuss the performance history (stage and screen) of each play. Vols. 27-present provide post-1960 criticism. Organization: A thematic introductory section is followed by excerpts of criticism of particular plays arranged thematically, then chronologically. Indexing: At the end of each volume there are three indexes—a cumulative character index, a cumulative topic index, and a cumulative topic index by play. Features: Full bibliographic citations are included with each critical excerpt. Also, there are some illustrations.
Middleton Reference: AI3 .A278 Scope: This index to creative, critical, and scholarly writing indexes over 500 English language literary journals and magazines spanning the years 1975 to 1999. Indexing: Each year is indexed separately. Each volume consists of one alphabetical author-subject index.
The drama scholars' index to plays and filmscripts
Middleton Reference: PN 1655 S33 Scope: Indexes collections and periodicals as an aid to finding plays and film scripts. Coverage extends from 1700 to 1983. Indexing: Authors and titles are indexed together in one continuous alphabet.
Twentieth-century literary criticism
Middleton Reference: PN771 .T85 Holdings: v.1(1978)-v.49(1993),v.51(1994)-v.96(2000) Scope: Presents criticism of the works of more than 500 novelists, poets, playwrights, short story writers and other creative writers who lived between 1900 and 1999. Every fourth volume in the series is devoted to topics rather than individual authors. Organization: Each entry begins with author information, such as his or her name and pseudonyms, dates, major works, a brief biography, and, when available, a picture. This section is followed by excerpts from criticism, arranged chronologically, and fully cited. This is followed by cross-references to other Gale publications. Indexing: At the end of each volume, there are cumulative author, topic, and nationality indexes. There is a title index specific to each volume. There is also a separate cumulative title index for the entire series. Cross-indexing to other Gale publications is built into these indexes.
Twentieth-century short story explication; interpretations, 1900-1966, of short fiction since 1800
Middleton Reference: Z5917 S5 W33 Scope: Includes interpretations of short stories published from 1900 to 1994. Indexing: Each volume is indexed separately, alphabetically by author, then by short story beneath each author.
The complete works of Virginia Woolf including variant and hard-to-find editions. Over 12,000 manuscript images from the Henry W and Albert A. Berg Collection at the New York Public Library and the Monks House Papers at the University of Sussex. Ask for this item at the Reference Desk.
