This guide identifies basic resources for finding literary criticism. The materials are located in the Reference Department on Level 1 of Pius XII Memorial Library or are available via the Web. The guide is not comprehensive; rather, it should be used as a starting point for research for undergraduate students at Saint Louis University.
 

Reference Sources || Find Books Using the SLU Libraries Catalog || Find Articles Using Databases
 

Gale's Literary Index
This is an online index for book and author information found in large, Gale Group reference sets such as Contemporary Authors, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Dictionary of Literary Biography, and Short Story Criticism (see sources listed below). Use it to ascertain what reference sources contain information on a specific work. Pius Library owns many, but not all, of the reference sources indexed in this database.

The following reference sources contain excerpts of literary criticism. Use these sources to learn how a work has been received over time.

Draper, James P., ed. Black Literature Criticism: Excerpts From Criticism of the Most Significant Works of Black Authors Over the Past 200 Years. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992.
     Ref. PS 153.N5 B556 1992
Covers 125 major black writers from the United States, Nigeria, South Africa, Jamaica and over a dozen other countries. Entries include biographical information, excerpts of criticism and author portraits.

Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research, 1988-.
     Ref. PN 610 .C53
Features excerpts of criticism on the works of authors who died before 1400.

Contemporary Literary Criticism (CLC). Detroit: Gale Research, 1973-.
     Ref. PN 771.C59
A continuing series that provides readers with excerpts of literary criticism and general information on more than 2,000 authors now living or who have died after December 31, 1959.

Harris, Laurie Lanzen, ed. Shakespearean Criticism: Excerpts From the Criticism of William Shakespeare's Plays and Poetry, From the First Published Appraisals to Current Evaluations. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984-.
     Ref. PR 2965 .S43 1984
Significant excerpts of published criticism on the works of William Shakespeare.

Krstovic, Jelena, ed. Hispanic Literature Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994.
     Ref. PQ 7081.A1 H573 1994
Excerpts of criticism of works by major Hispanic writers of the past one hundred years.

Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984-.
     Ref. PN 86.L52
A continuing series that provides readers with excerpts of literary criticism and general information on authors who died between 1400 and 1799.

Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism (NCLC). Detroit: Gale Research, 1981-.
     Ref. PN 761.N5
A continuing series that provides readers with excerpts of literary criticism and general information on more than 300 authors who died between 1800 and 1899.

Poetry Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991-.
     Ref. PN 1105 .P63
Features excerpts of poetry criticism as well as biographical information on poets and lists of their works.

Short Story Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research, 1988-.
     Ref. PN 3373 .S45
Excerpts of criticism on the works of short story writers as well as biographical and bibliographical information.

Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (TCLC). Detroit: Gale Research, 1978-.
     Ref. PN 771.G27
A continuing series that provides readers with excerpts of literary criticism and general information on more than 500 authors who died between 1900 and 1999.

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Search the SLU Libraries Catalog to find books. If you are unable to find what you need, search MOBIUS, a larger consortium that includes SLU libraries, Washington University Libraries, and other academic libraries in Missouri.

To find criticism of an author's works, perform a subject search in the SLU Libraries Catalog on the author's name (last name, first name) and then select the subject heading that ends in "criticism and interpretation". For example, search for "Frost, Robert" and select the subject heading that says "Frost Robert - 1874 - 1963 - Criticism And Interpretation."

When looking for criticism of a particular work, perform a subject search in the SLU Libraries Catalog on the name of the work. For example, search for "Jennie Gerhardt" as a subject, not as a title.

You can also use a keyword search to find literary criticism. For example, if you were looking for criticism of the works of Theodore Dreiser, you could perform a keyword search for "dreiser and criticism."

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Remote access to library databases is available only to SLU students, faculty, and staff.

MLA International Bibliography - 1926- present
Indexes books, book chapters, dissertations and articles from over 4,400 journals in language, linguistics, literature, and folklore.

Humanities Full Text - 1984-present
Indexes and/or abstracts over 600 humanities periodicals. Full text is available from approximately 230 journals.

JSTOR
This archival journal resource provides access to the full-text of over 550 journal titles, including many literature journals. Note that the last 1 to 7 years of each journal are not available in this resource.

Project Muse
Full-text access to over 300 scholarly journals published by Johns Hopkins University Press and over 20 other not-for-profit presses in the areas of humanities, social sciences, and mathematics.

Arts and Humanities Citation Index - 1995-present
This database provides author and subject indexing of articles published worldwide in arts and humanities journals. It also supports citation indexing, which establishes links between cited articles and the most recent publications in which they are cited.

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