LibGuides: American Literature Resource Guide: Literary Criticism & Journal Articles

Gale Literary Criticism Series

Gale Research, a reference publisher, has produced related multi-volume sets which reprint important criticism on major writers. Each volume of a set contains several authors. Each entry in a volume includes the name and a brief biographical sketch of the author being discussed, followed by excerpts from several works critical of the author’s writing. A complete citation follows every excerpt. This is the information to use for your bibliography or works cited list. Gale offers a free online Literary Index which identifies the series and volumes that cover a particular author or a particular work.

The following sets are also available online in the Literature Criticism Online database with the exception of Black Literature Criticism:

Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism
This series, referred to as TCLC, covers authors who died between 1900 and 1959. Some examples are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Volumes 1 - 210 also available in print (REF PN771 .G27).
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism
This series, referred to as NCLC, covers authors who died between 1800 and 1899. Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Fedor Dostoevsky are examples of these. Volumes 1 - 221 also available in print (REF PN761 .N5).
Shakespearean Criticism
This series exclusively covers the works--poetic and dramatic--of William Shakespeare. Also available in print (REF PR2965 .S43 1984).
Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800
LC offers excerpts of criticisms of the works of novelists, poets, playwrights, philosophers and other creative writers who died between 1400 and 1799. It includes both current criticism and appraisals by an author’s contemporaries. Marie de LaFayette, Geoffrey Chaucer and Ts’ao Hsueh-Chin are examples of authors covered by these volumes. Volumes 1 -171 also available in print (REF PN86 .L56).
Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism
Referred to as CMLC, this series covers authors who date from antiquity to the 14th century. Examples include Plato and commentary on Beowulf.
Poetry Criticism
Referred to in indexes as PC, this set covers poets of any time period, but discusses only their poetic works. So, Sylvia Plath’s poetry is covered in PC 1 (as well as several volumes of CLC), her novel, The Bell Jar, is covered only by CLC (check the CLC indexes to see which volumes of CLC cover her novel). PC was created only a few years ago; so many writers who wrote poetry exclusively may also appear in a different set, especially criticism of their earlier works. For example, the poet Marianne Moore is in PC 4, but also in CLC 1,2,4,8,10,13,19 and 47. Volumes 1 - 91 also available in print (REF PN1010 .P499).
Short Story Criticism
Referred to as SSC, this series covers only short stories. Some authors, for example, Bret Harte, are best known for short stories. But many authors, like William Faulkner, write both short stories and novels and are covered in SSC for short story analysis, and in many volumes of CLC for discussion of novels. Volumes 1 - 109 also available in print (REF PN3373 .S386) .
Black Literature Criticism
Contains excerpts from criticism of the most significant works of Black authors over the past 200 years. It includes authors such as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Richard Wright. BLC is not limited to American authors. Available only in print (REF PS153 .N5 B556).

Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new window
CLC is used for authors now living, or those who died after December 31, 1959. William Faulkner, Joyce Carol Oates, and Maya Angelou are a few examples of the authors in this set. Volumes 1 - 252 also available in print (REF PN771.C5 )

Article Databases

Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new window
Contains the Gales series: Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Literature Criticism 1400-1800, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Shakespearean Criticism, Poetry Criticism, and Short Story Criticism.

Search for articles about your topic in the following databases. (Use restricted to the Suffolk University community.)

Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Self-described as "the premier Internet resource for information on literary figures from all time periods writing in such genres as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, journalism, and more." Includes biographies, bibliographies, work overviews, and critical essays. Can be cross-searched with the Literature Criticism Online and LitFinder databases using the Artemis Literary Sources search platform.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
MLA International Bibliography offers a detailed bibliography of journal articles, books and dissertations. Produced by the Modern Language Association, the electronic version of the bibliography dates back to the 1920's and contains over 2.3 million citations from more than 4,400 journals & series and 1,000 book publishers. The indexed materials coverage is international and includes almost 60 titles from JSTOR’s language and literature collection as well as links to full text.
Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete This link opens in a new window
This is an excellent bio-critical series that covers writers of all genres and time periods of American and British literature and selected other literatures.

Cambridge Histories Online
Includes the 8-volume Cambridge History of American Literature whose essays exploring the "intricate interplay between text and context." The volumes cover the time period from 1590 through 1995.
JSTOR
Indexes and provides full-text access to over 800 scholarly journals including 118 journals in the area of languages and literature. Coverage is from volume 1, issue 1 of each journal. Note that there are generally three to five years between the last issue available in JSTOR and the most recently published issue of a journal.

Women's Periodicals of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century, 1733-1844 This link opens in a new window
Comprises one of three collections containing women's-related periodicals that span the 18th through the 19th century and represents a broad range of subjects and places of publication. This series draws heavily from the Colonial through the Jacksonian Era, spanning roughly from the 1730's-1840's. Because almost all of the women's periodicals by nature covered many topics, the titles included in this collection highlight radically changing perceptions of womanhood and ideas about the role of women over time. Some representative titles are: the Lady's Monthly Museum or Polite Repository of Amusement and Instruction, the Ladies' Companion, the Lady's Book, and Margret Fuller's Transcendentalist publication, the Dial.

Project Muse
Indexes and provides full-text access to over 200 scholarly journals covering many disciplines including literature. All journals are peer-reviewed.

LitFinder This link opens in a new window
LitFinder is a database that indexes and reproduces "more than 135,000 full-text poems, stories, plays and more." Older works, where copyright has expired, are more likely to be found in this database than contemporary works. In addition to the work itself, you'll find short descriptive and critical entries and a ReadSpeaker function that reads the work aloud. Can be cross-searched with the Literature Criticism Online and Literature Resource Center databases using the Artemis Literary Sources search platform.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Our best general research database, this online resource provides indexing and abstracting for over 8,000 journals of which 3,600 are peer-reviewed publications, with full-text access for nearly 4,700 of the titles. Indexing and abstracting coverage generally from the mid-1980's and full-text coverage for many titles dating back to 1990. You may limit search results to full-text and peer-reviewed articles. The "document type" limiter in Advanced Search allows you limit your search to book reviews as well as other types of reviews.

Academic OneFile
Includes more than 60 million articles from more than 11,000 titles. Coverage begins in 1980. You may limit search results to full-text and refereed articles.