LibGuides: English: Junior Seminar: Context &amp; Background Material

Oxford and Cambridge Companions

Oxford Companions and Cambridge Companions are a series of authoritative guides, written by leading experts, offering introductions to major writers, artists, topics, and periods. They are an excellent resource for getting started with your research.

The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory by Ellen Rooney (Editor)
Essays and suggested readings on the development of feminist literary methods, the impact of feminism on different genres, and interdisciplinary approaches to literary criticism.
The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism by Stuart Curran (Editor)
Provides clear and coherent access to the historical roots, intellectual ferment, and cultural range of British Romanticism. It includes a chronology of major publications and events, and an extensive guide to further reading.
The Cambridge Companion to Narrative Theory by Matthew Garrett (Editor)
Presents narrative theory as an approach to understanding all kinds of cultural production: from literary texts to historiography, from film and videogames to philosophical discourse. It takes the long historical view, outlines essential concepts, and reflects on the way narrative forms connect with and rework social forms.

Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
Contains biographies of authors, critics, literary characters, and historical figures, and plot summaries of major works
Oxford Companion to American Literature
Author biographies, plot summaries, and descriptions of literary movements in American literature.
Oxford Companion to English Literature
A key resource to the study of English lit providing coverage of writers, their works, and the historical and cultural context in which they wrote. Includes criticism, literary theory, and allusions.
Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English
This Companion examines English-language writers and writing throughout the twentieth century, in all major genres and from all around the world
Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States
A comprehensive survey of women writers across four centuries of American history. There are biographical entries on poets, novelists, and playwrights

A New Companion to Renaissance Drama by Arthur F. Kinney (Editor); Thomas Warren Hopper (Editor)
A comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the material conditions of Renaissance plays, England's most important dramatic period. Chapters are organized by cultural context, theatre history, genre studies, theoretical applications, and material studies

Quick Lookups

There are many handbooks, dictionaries, and encyclopedias that provide basic information for literary studies. If you are not clear about your topic, try establishing its limits with a good definition and some introductory information. The following sources can give you a quick overview or summary of a topic.

Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism This link opens in a new window
Historical survey of critics and theorists, critical schools and movements, and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods.

Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Ref PN1021 .N39 2012
"Provides surveys of 106 national poetries; descriptions of poetic forms and genres...detailed explanations of the devices of prosody and rhetoric; and overviews of all major schools of poetry ancient and modern, Western and Eastern...provides balanced and comprehensive accounts of the major movements and issues in criticism and literary theory."
The Oxford Companion to English Literature
Ref PR19 .D73 2000
Brief articles on authors, works, literary movements, 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.

Oxford Companion to American Literature
Author biographies, plot summaries, and descriptions of literary movements in American literature.
Contemporary Authors
Provides biographical and bibliographical information and references on more than 120,000 U.S. and international authors

English: Junior Seminar

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Oxford and Cambridge Companions

Quick Lookups