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Literary Criticism & Theory: A Student's Research Guide

How to Search / General Sources / Theories

How to Search for Articles and Books

• Lesley Libraries Databases

  Access the databases through the myLibrary tab in myLesley. Go to "Finding Articles" box: Databases by Subject: Literature.

  Need help finding the databases? Go to "Get Started."

• Searching in a Database

  After you have become familiar with the terms and concepts of literary criticism by reviewing the books and web guides you are now more prepared to start your research. To search for critical essays or journal articles on databases use subject headings or keywords with the terminology that is specific to the theory/criticism you are studying.

• Searching in the FLO Catalog
  http://endeavor.flo.org

  When searching for books combine keywords. For example if searching for information about 'Chaucer and Canterbury Tales', combine the author's name, 'Chaucer,' with the type of information you want, 'criticism and interpretation'. If you want more theory specific results try 'Chaucer and structuralism'.

General Sources

• Lesley Reference Books

  Atkins, Douglas G. and Laura Morrow, eds. Contemporary Literary Theory.

  Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. [Ref PN94 .C69 1989]

  Groden, Michael and Martin Kreiswirth, eds. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary

  Theory and Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. [Ref PN81 .J64 1994]

  Turco, Lewis. The Book of Literary Terms: the genres of fiction, drama,

  nonfiction, literary criticism, and scholarship. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1999. [Ref PN44.5 .T87 1999]

   

• Web Guides
  
  

  Harris, Robert. "A Glossary of Literary Terms." VirtualSalt.

  4 January 2002. Online. http://www.virtualsalt.com/litterms.htm 17 May 2002.

  Provides an easy to use glossary of literary terminology.

  Internet Public Library. "Online Literary Criticism Collection."

  14 December 2001. http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/ 17 May 2002.

  Critical and biographical websites about authors and their works.

  Liu, Alan. "Voice of the Shuttle." No date. Online.

  http://vos.ucsb.edu 17 May 2002.

  Voice of the Shuttle offers an index of links to literary theory sites. This site is recommended by the Internet Public Library.

Theories of Literary Criticism

New Criticism / Reader-Response Criticism / Structuralism/ Deconstruction/ Psychoanalytic Criticism /Feminism / Marxism / Cultural Studies

New Criticism

Brooks, Cleanth and Robert Penn Warren, eds. Understanding Poetry.

New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960. [PR1109.B676 1960]

 

Empsom, William. Seven Types of Ambiguity. Norfolk, CT:

New Directions, 1953. [PN1031 .E5 1953]

 

Wellek, Rene and Austin Warren. Theory of Literature. New York:

Harcourt, Brace and World, 1956. [PN45 .W36 1956]

Reader-Response Criticism

Clifford, John, ed. The Experience of Reading: Louise Rosenblatt and

Reader-Response Theory. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1991. [PN98 .R38 E7 1990]

 

Tompkins, Jane. Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to

Post-Structuralism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. [PN98 .R38 R4]

Structuralism

Culler, Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study

of Literature. New York: Cornell University Press, 1976. [PN98 .S7 C8 1976]

 

Quigley, T.R. "Structuralism and Post-Structuralism"

http://homepage.newschool.edu/~quigleyt/vcs/structuralism.pdf

This site provides a background summary and analysis of Kantian and Saussure theories of linguistics, as well as a summary of the significance of structuralist theory. Also offers diagrams with comprehensible examples of the linguistics process of analysis.

Deconstruction

Crowley, Sharon. A Teacher's Introduction to Deconstruction.

Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1989. [PE1404 .C76 1989]

 

Derrida, Jacques. Deconstruction in a Nutshell: a Conversation with Jacques

Derrida. Ed. John D. Caputo. New York: Fordham University Press, 1997. [B809.6 .D46 1997]

 

Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Ed. Charles Bally

& Albert Reidlinger. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959. [P121 .S363 1966]

Psychoanalytic Criticism

Hoffman, Frederick J. Freudianism and the Literary Mind. Baton Rouge:

Louisiana State University Press, 1957. [PN49 .H6 1957]

 

Mollinger, Robert N. Psychoanalysis and Literature: An Introduction.

Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981. [PS88 .M57]

 

Sugg, Richard P., ed. Jungian Literary Criticism. Evanston, IL:

Northwestern UP, 1992. [PN98 .P75 J8 1992]

Feminism

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman

Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. [PR115 .G5]

 

Meese, Elizabeth.Crossing the Double-Cross: The Practice of Feminist Criticism.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. [PS152 .M44 1986]

 

Showalter, Elaine, ed. The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women,

Literature,and Theory. New York: Pantheon, 1985. [PN98 .W64 N48 1985]

 

Warhol, Robin and Diane Price Herndl, eds. Feminisms: An Anthology of

LiteraryTheory and Criticism. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991. [AIB PN98 .W64 F366 1991]

 

Stowe, Heinz. "Gender Inn." No date. Online.

http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/datenbank/e_index.htm. 17 May 2002.

The Gender Inn database allows you to search for articles on feminist and gender studies criticism. This site also offers a link to a list of annotated website links for further exploration.

 

Switala, Kristin. "Feminist Literary Criticism and Theory"

Center for Digital Discourse and Culture, Virginia Tech University. 1999. Online. http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/lit.html. 17 May 2002.

Marxism

Homer, Sean. "A Short History of the Marxist Literary Group."

No date. Online. http://mlg.eserver.org/about/a-short-history-of-the-mlg/

Provides a "Short History of the Marxist Literary Group." Has information about the development and transformations within Marxist criticism.

 

"Marxist Internet Archive." No date. Online.

http://www.marxists.org/index.htm. 17 May 2002.

This site offers access to a large collection of works by Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and selected Marxist writers. Also includes biographies, historical documents, and an encyclopedia of Marxism.

Cultural Studies

Gates, Henry L. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American

Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.[PS153 .N5 G28 1988]

 

Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney. Using the Master's Tools: Resistance and the

Literature of the African and South-Asian Diasporas. New York: St. Martin's, 2000. [PR120 .M55 N44 2000]

 

Ross, Robert L. International Literature in English: Essays on the Major Writers. New York:

Garland, 1991. [Ref PR9080 .I57 1991]

 

Roy, Parama. Indian Traffic: Identities in Question in Colonial and Postcolonial

India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. [PR9485.2 .R69 1998]

Created by Sarah Plante, Lesley College '02

Modified and maintained by Lesley University Reference Librarian.

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