Literary Criticism

Web Sites

American Authors on the Web

http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/AmeLit.html#Authors

This is a Japanese site, with many excellent links. Find authors by date or use "Edit/Find" or "Control F" to find the author you are researching. .

There are also useful links to General Resources, although some of the links are broken.

New York Times>Book Search

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/

To retrieve book reviews in The New York Times, look for the "Search Book Reviews since 1981" box and type your title or author in the "Book search" box (you can use the drop down menu to search an exact phrase or all words.)

English Literature on the Web

http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/EngLit.html

Includes a further links to British and Irish Authors on the Web, with authors listed chronologically. Use "Edit/Find" or "Control F" to find the author you are researching.

Gale Literary Index

http://www.galenet.com/servlet/LitIndex/

This is an index only. It is a master index for all the Gale Literature Reference books, many of which are owned by our school library or by the Dedham Public Library.

Once you have determined that there is criticism in a Gale title on your author or literary work, you then must consult or catalog or the Dedham Public Library catalog to determine if one of our libraries owns the work.

Search by Author in this format:

Set the search box to "Start of Last Name" and enter your author in the search box as LAST NAME, FIRST.

Once you have retrieved results for an author, you will see sources for general criticism on the author first, followed by specific works in alphabetical order. Scroll way down the page to see criticism on specific works.

Note that titles of works originally published in another language are usually listed in the database in their original language. There is a title search, but it's usually best to search by author.

Internet Public Library: Literary Criticism

http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/

Use the search box or the A to Z index to find links to criticism and biography by author or by title. You can also browse by nationality or by literary period.

Librarians' Internet Index

http://lii.org>Literature & Books>More Subtopics> Literary Criticism.

This is a database of recommended Internet sites on most topics.

To search for a recommended Internet site on an author, type the author's name in the search box.

To view all the literary criticism sites in the database, follow this path from the main page. Select "Literature & Books," and then select "Literary Criticism."

LiteraryHistory.com *****

http://www.literaryhistory.com/

"Indexing the Internet. A selective bibliography of open access articles for more than 200 authors, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Authors of Web Sites."

Voice of the Shuttle *****

http://vos.ucsb.edu/index.asp

See especially the Literature in English section of this site. A scholarly, outstanding collection of Internet links for English and American and other literatures. There is a search box and a summary of the major categories (largely arranged by literary period ) by which you can browse the links.

Literary Reference Center

Offers detailed, usually full-text, information on authors and their works, covering all periods and many nationalities. Sources include literary encyclopedias and research titles, as well as hundreds of literary journals.

Use the "Browse Works" or "Browse Authors" feature to explore the database.

If you are browsing by work, once you have retrieved the information on a particular work, look way down the page for a "Related Information" box with a link to "Literary Criticism."

If you are browsing by author, once you have retrieved the information on a particular author, look way down the page to see TABS for "Literary Criticism," and "Reference" information in literary encyclopedias on the author.

There is an ADVANCED SEARCH feature at the top of the screen that permits more complex searches: see the "Search Tips" on the Advanced Search Page.

This database also provides full-text access to many out-of-copyright literary classics online, including thousands of poems, short stories and other classic texts.

An Ebsco database. To access from home, have your Dedham Public Library card handy, and click HERE FOR OUT OF SCHOOL ACCESS .

Academic OneFile

Provides more than 8,000 academic journals,many in full-text. Check the full-text box to retrieve only items that are full-text.

Type your author or book in the searh box, and when results come back, look in the Document Type column on the left, and click "critical essays" to view criticism on your book or author.

An Infotrac Database. To access from home, have your Dedham Public Library card handy, and click HERE FOR OUT OF SCHOOL ACCESS .

Contemporary Literary Criticism

Provides critical essays only on contemporary authors and their works. "Contemporary" sometimes includes authors who are no longer alive, such as Truman Capote, who died in the 1980s.

In this database, the last result, or the penultimate article, is usually best! Look for the subtitle: "A brief review of the author's life, works, and critical reception."

Search for an author in "first name last name" order or "last name" only.

An Infotrac database. To access from home, have your Dedham Public Library card handy, and click HERE FOR OUT OF SCHOOL ACCESS .

Contemporary Novelists

This is an electronic reference book, originally published in 2001.

"Contains biographical/critical essays on the most important living novelists writing in English worldwide. "