Library Research Guides: ENGLISH & COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: Context & Overviews

Why Use Reference Materials?

for a concise overview of a topic

to develop vocabulary or keywords for searching

for suggestions for further sources

Reference Collections

Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Biographies, topic overviews, reviews, and scholarly analysis of authors and works from all genres, eras, and regions of the world.

Literature Online (LION) Reference
Encyclopedia articles, biographies, bibliographies, critical introductions, and other reference material on literary topics.

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Search 500+ reference works in all disciplines.
Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
Over 400 full-text academic encyclopedias, language dictionaries, books of quotations, and other sources. Includes subject-specific titles from art, classics, history, law, linguistics, literature, media studies, medicine, performing arts, philosophy, religion, science and technology, politics, and more.

Gale Virtual Reference Library
Search 100+ encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference books.

Full Text Biographies

Biography (Gale In Context) This link opens in a new window
Authoritative biographies of historically significant figures and present-day newsmakers from every field—media, sports, politics, religion, medicine, and more. Find biographies by name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, or gender.
Dates: 3000 BCE-Present
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Select "biographies" to search in or browse all biographical sources.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Deceased people associated with Britain and the British Empire

Selected Reference Materials

The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics [e-resource]
Over 1,100 entries on the history, theory, technique, and criticism of poetry, including coverage of more than 100 nations, regions, and languages. (2012)
The Routledge Companion to World Literature [e-resource]
Publication Date: 2013
Separated into four key sections, the volume covers: the history of World Literature through significant writers and theorists; the disciplinary relationship of World Literature to areas such as philology, translation, globalization and diaspora studies; theoretical issues in World Literature including gender, politics and ethics; a global perspective on the politics of World Literature.
A Dictionary of Critical Theory (2nd ed.) [e-resource] by Ian Buchanan
Ranging from "abject" to "Žižek," short entries provide a concise introduction to concepts, theories, events, and biographies of major figures. (2018)
The Cambridge Companion to the Postcolonial Novel by Ato Quayson (Editor)
Publication Date: 2016
A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures: Continental Europe and Its Empires
Publication Date: 2008
The Cambridge Companion to British Romantic Poetry (e-book)
Publication Date: 2008
Offers a comprehensive overview of the poetry of the period in its literary and historical contexts. The essays consider its metrical, formal, and linguistic features; its relation to history; its influence on other genres; its reflections of empire and nationalism; and the implications of oral transmission and the rapid expansion of print culture and mass readership.
Handbook of British Romanticism (e-book) by Ralf Haekel (Editor)
Publication Date: 2017
Features discussions of key concepts such as history, class, gender, and science as well as thorough accounts of central literary genres and key literary texts in the light of recent theoretical developments.
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, 2nd ed. [e-resource]
Publication Date: 2015
From the conjectured identity of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets to the misprints in the First Folio, from Shakespeare's favorite figures of speech to the staging of Othello in South Africa, a team of 100 internationally renowned scholars provides a lucid, stimulating, and authoritative guide to Shakespeare's plays and poems, and their interpretation around the world over the last four centuries. Special feature entries on every play are included.
Critical Survey of Poetry by Philip K. Jason, ed.
Call Number: Clapp Reference PN1021 .C7 2003
A great starting point for research on poets, providing analyses and development of the poet's work with brief discussions of specific poems. Excellent annotated bibliographies for nearly 700 poets.
Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature
Call Number: Clapp Reference PN41 .E48 1998
A cross-cultural reference, encompassing eras from the ancient Greece of Aesop's fables to the modern America of Toni Morrison. Subject categories are diverse, including authors, genres, terms, and specific works, organized alphabetically, but accessible through a category list and a detailed index as well
Literary research guide: an annotated listing of reference sources in English literary studies by James L. Harner
Call Number: Clapp Reference PR83 .H37 2008
For almost twenty years the starting place for literary research has been the Literary Research Guide--the place to look, for example, if someone were working on a paper on the influence of the 19th century drug culture on Edgar Allan Poe and wanted to know whether someone else had already done this.