LibGuides: English : Criticism & Articles

Links to Critical Material

Links to databases that allow you to search the contents of periodicals to identify articles on your topic. If the article you are looking for is not available at Reed, you can request it from Interlibrary loan.

Look for terms like:

criticism
essays
biography
letters
correspondence
critical editions

Definitions:

Stand alone criticism: On shelf by original texts
Critical heritage: presents criticism from the time an author wrote a work.
Critical edition: Original text with historical context and bibliography.

MLA International Bibliography
The major index of literary, linguistic and folklore scholarship. Covers all languages and literatures except classical Greek and Latin.
LION: Literature Online
A fully searchable library of works of English and American poetry, drama, and prose, plus biographies and key secondary sources. Includes the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature.

Year's Work in English Studies
Selective and evaluative survey of the year's scholarship in English, American and other literatures in English.
Coverage Dates: 1919 - Present
American Literary Scholarship
American Literary Scholarship is a journal that covers current critical analysis of American literature. Bibliographic essays are arranged by writers and time periods, from pre-1800 to the present.

JSTOR
Full text archive of scholarly journals and primary sources in various disciplines. As of August 2024, the interdisciplinary library of images once known as Artstor has been completely incorporated within the JSTOR platform. Artstor images will appear in all searches, or you can use the Browse Images function.
Humanities International Complete
Replaces Humanities Abstracts. Full text of hundreds of journals, books and other published source. Covers humanities and social sciences.
Project MUSE (1958 - Present)
Full text access to over 400 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. All parts of the journals are scanned, including any images. A good source for current articles on a variety of subjects.
John Milton Bibliography (1624 - 1799)
All manuscripts and editions of Milton's works and all critical studies about his life and work.

Links to Older Critical Material

Listed below are several databases to help you find older critical material. The most comprehensive source is Periodicals Index Online.

Early English Books Online is good for much older works since it covers 1473-1700.

American Periodicals (1740 - 1900)
Digitized page images from over 1000 American magazines from the 18th and 19th centuries.
British Periodicals I and II (1680s - 1930s)
A collection of searchable, digital pages from British journals. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts and the social sciences.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) (1473 - 1700)
Contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.
Periodicals Index Online
Includes citations to articles in more than 4,600 scholarly journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Full text of historical newspapers, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Boston Globe. Also includes historical black newspapers including the Chicago Defender, the Los Angeles Sentinel, the New York Amsterdam News, and the Pittsburgh Courier. Coverage varies but generally starts in the 1800s. Issues include the complete paper, cover-to-cover, with full-page and article images in easily downloadable PDF format.
Readers' Guide Retrospective
Index of popular periodical literature from 1890 to 1982.

Links to Literary Criticism Books

The library has a number of important books of literary criticism and critical theory. If the call number starts with Ref, you can find the book in the Reference Room. Otherwise, the book will be in the regular stacks.

Dictionary of Concepts in Literary Criticism and Theory by Wendell V. Harris
Call Number: PN41 .H36 1992

ISBN: 9780313259326

Publication Date: 1992-04-13

Essays on seventy concepts of special importance to literary theory.
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory by Irena R. Makaryk (Editor)
Call Number: Ref PN81 .E43 1993

ISBN: 9780802059147

Publication Date: 1993-04-19
Encyclopedia of Literary Critics and Criticism by Chris Murray (Editor)
Call Number: Ref PN86 .E63 1999

ISBN: 9781579581442

Publication Date: 1999-12-01

2 vols. "Guide to literary theory and criticism past and present." Entries cover individuals, theories and concepts in both Western and non-Western theory and criticism.
Twentieth Century Literary Movements Dictionary by Helene Henderson (Editor); Jay P. Pederson (Editor)
Call Number: Ref PN597 .T94 2000

ISBN: 9781558884267

Publication Date: 1999-09-01

"Entries on major and minor literary movements and schools associated with Twentieth-century world literature." Includes entries on individual writers identified with those movements, such as novelists, poets, dramatists, theorists, etc.
Reader's Guide to Literature in English by Mark Hawkins-Dady (Editor)
Call Number: Ref PR85 .R42 1996

ISBN: 9781884964206

Publication Date: 1996-05-01

Provides descriptions and evaluation of critical writing on a range of topics and writers of the British Isles, the United States, and other major English-speaking traditions.

List of Important Journals

General (not restricted by nationality or period)
a/b: Auto/Biography
Biography
Critical Inquiry
Diacritics
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
MLN (Modern Language Notes)
MLQ (Modern Language Quarterly)
MLR (Modern Language Review)
Narrative
Novel
PMLA (Publications of the Modern Language Association)
Representations
The Sewanee Review
Signs
SAQ (The South Atlantic Quarterly)
Social Text
Texas Studies in Literature and Language
Theater
Theater Journal
Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature
Yale Journal of Criticism
The Yale Review

General American (not restricted by period)
African American Review
Amerasia Journal
American Indian Quarterly
American Literary History
American Literature
American Quarterly
Callaloo
Journal of Asian American Studies
MELUS (Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US)

Pre-1900 American Literature
Early American Literature
The Emily Dickinson Journal
The Henry James Review

Twentieth-Century American Literature
Contemporary Literature
Critique
Faulkner Journal
Journal of Modern Literature
Modern Drama
Modern Language Studies
Modernism/ Modernity
Mosaic
Paideuma
Twentieth-Century Literature
The Wallace Stevens Journal
The William Carlos Williams Review

General British (not restricted by period)
ELH (English Literary History)
English Studies
SEL (Studies in English Literature)

The British Medieval Period
Arthuriana
The Chaucer Review
Exemplaria
Journal of English and Germanic Philology
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Medieval Studies
Medium Aevum
MP (Modern Philology)
Philological Quarterly
Speculum
Studies in Philology

The Renaissance and British Seventeenth Century (to the Restoration)
English Literary Renaissance
Milton Quarterly
MP (Modern Philology)
Shakespeare Quarterly
Shakespeare Studies
Shakespeare Survey
Sixteenth Century Journal
Spenser Studies
Studies in the Renaissance

The Restoration and British Eighteenth Century
Eighteenth-Century Fiction
Eighteenth-Century Studies
Restoration and 18th Century Theatre Research
Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture

The British Romantic Period (c.1797-c.1820)
The Keats-Shelley Review
Romantic Praxis
Romanticism
Studies in Romanticism
The Wordsworth Circle

The British Victorian Period (c.1820-1900)
Dickens Quarterly
Dickens Studies Annual
ELT (English Literature in Transition)
Nineteenth-Century Fiction
Nineteenth-Century Literature
Victorian Poetry
Victorian Studies

Modern and Contemporary British Literature (1900-present)
Contemporary Literature
Critique
ELT (English Literature in Transition)
JJQ (The James Joyce Quarterly)
Journal of Modern Literature
MFS (Modern Fiction Studies)
Modern Drama
Modernism/ Modernity
Mosaic
Paideuma
Twentieth-Century Literature
The Yeats/Eliot Review