Reference shelf: Literature

  • American Verse Project a searchable archive of American poetry published prior to 1920. This is on-going project is a collaborative effort of the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative (HTI) and the University of Michigan Press.
  • ARTFL French language texts from the Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language. (ChRiv-px)
  • Classical Literature. The Internet Classics Archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, provides word/phrase searchable works of Aeschylus, Antoninus, Aristophanes, Aristotle, Caesar, Carus, Euripides, Herodotus, Hippocrates, Homer, Ovid, Plato, Plotinus, Plutarch, Sophocles, Tacitus, Thucydides and Virgil.
  • Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln is a searchable online version of the 8 volume set published in 1953 by the Abraham Lincoln Association. This site has been created as part of the University of Michigan's "Making of America" project.
  • Gale Literary Databases bring three literary resources together in a single database of information on the lives and writings of nearly 100,000 authors. (BU-px)

    • Contemporary Authors provides a comprehensive collection of biographies of currently active authors.

    • Contemporary Literary Criticism Select provides excerpts from critical works on most major twentieth century writers, grouped by individual titles within an author's body of work. Extensive bibliographies are also included for each individual work, and for the author as a whole. This resource should be used in conjunction with the print version of Contemporary Literary Criticism (Mugar Reference X PN 771 .C59) which covers a larger number of more obscure authors.

    • Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detailed literary biographies of authors from a wide variety of genres, nationalities, and literary forms. Should also be used in conjunction with the print version of the Dictionary of Literary Biography (Mugar Reference X PS 21 .D52M).

     

  • The Internet Movie Database is an international encyclopedia of films. Searchable by film title, genre or personnel. Extensive use of hypertext links allows the user to trace many elements of an entry to other related entries. Many entries include full texts of reviews.
  • The Koran. A full text searchable English version of the Holy Qur'an translated by M.H. Shakir and published by Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc., in 1983.
  • Middle English Compendium comprises three major resources: an electronic version of the Middle English Dictionary, a "HyperBibliography" of Middle English prose and verse, and an associated network of electronic resources. (ChRiv-px)
  • Interplay is an index to plays in collections, anthologies and periodicals. Interplay should serve as a supplement to Mugar Memorial Library's other play indexes. See also:
    • Play Index. Mugar Reference X Z5781 .F53,
    • Ottemiller, John H., Index to plays in collections. Mugar Reference X Z5781 .08 1988
  • Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. This standard critical reference provides essay-length entries and bibliographies of key thinkers and their thoughts. The Guide will be updated regularly, and the full text is searchable - unlike the printed version (Mugar Z6514.C97 J64 1994). (ChRiv-px)
  • LION: Literature Online, from Chadwyck Healy, is a collection of full text literary databases and complementary reference databases. Click on "Individual Collections" to see a description of the databases listed below or to search a single collection. Other search options listed on the introductory screen can be used to search the whole database at once. (ChRiv-px)
    --Boston University subscribes to the following titles:
    • 20th Century American Poetry African-American Poetry (1750-1900)
    • American Poetry (1600-1900)
    • Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature Early English Prose Fiction (1500-1700)
    • Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare (1591-1911)
    • Eighteenth Century Fiction (1700-1780)
    • English Drama (1280-1915)
    • English Poetry (600-1900)
    • The Faber Poetry Library (20th century)
    • King James Bible
    • Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged.

  • The On-Line Books Page, presents over 15,000 online public domain English language books. The criteria for this site specify that there can be no charge for access to these publications, either in the form of advance fees, shareware fees, or requirments that the user provide personal information.
  • Project Bartleby at Columbia University has made selected works of about forty authors available in a word/phrase searchable format. This format operates from a single search engine covering the entire archive, not by individual author. However, a particular Author's work can be rendered in full text by title or chapter. Among those included are, T.S Eliot poetry and prose 1917-20; Robert Frost,1913-1920; the complete works of Shelley and Wordsworth; Yeats 1899-1919; Whitman's Leaves of Grass, etc.
  • Shakespeare. The Complete Works of Shakespeare--at a site maintained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • TS Eliot Concordance. Tsebase is a  word/phrase searchable concordance (renders only one line of text) of the complete works of T.S. Eliot (excluding Greek passages).

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