University of Oregon Libraries
University of Oregon Libraries

English Literature

The following is a selected list of resources for starting research in English literature. For further assistance, contact Elizabeth Peterson, Literature Librarian, at emp@uoregon.edu.

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Starting Your Research

  • Subject Encyclopedias
    General encyclopedias (sometimes called companions or dictionaries) of English literature are good for gathering quick information about people, movements, and literary works. Browse near these call numbers for similar items.
    • The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English KNIGHT REFERENCE PR85 .C29.
    • The Oxford Companion to 2oth Century Literature in English KNIGHT REFERENCE PR 471 .O94.
    • The Oxford Companion to English Literature KNIGHT REFERENCE PR 19 .D73.

    You can also find useful encyclopedias that cover particular aspects of literature in English. For example:
    • Dictionary of British Literary Characters 18th and 19th Century Novels KNIGHT REFERENCE PR830.C47 D5.
    • Dictionary of British Literary Characters 20th Century Novels KNIGHT REFERENCE PR888.C47 D53.
    • The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction REFERENCE KNIGHT PN3433.4 .E53.
    • The Feminist Companion to Literature in English KNIGHT REFERENCE PR 111 .F45.
    • The Oxford Companion to 20th Century Poetry in English KNIGHT REFERENCE PR 601 .09.
    • The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales KNIGHT REFERENCE PN3437 .O94.
    • The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction KNIGHT REFERENCE PR781 .S88.
  • Terminology - Definitions and Discussion
    • Literary terms: A Handbook to Literature by C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon KNIGHT REF PN 41 .H6 1986 and similar titles nearby.
    • Poetry: Poetry Handbook by Babette Deutsch KNIGHT REF PN 44.5 .D4 1974b and similar titles nearby.
    • Criticism: The Johns Hopkins Guide To Literary Theory And Criticism KNIGHT REF PN 81 .J638 1994; also available online.
  • Biographical Sources
    If you are looking for biographical information about a major author, you can do a subject search in the library catalog, typing the author's last name first. (I.e., shakespeare, william.) Works by and about the author will be shelved together.

    If a subject search on the author's name doesn't yield good results, check the resources on the Library's Finding Biographical Information page.

    Other useful resources for finding biographical information include:
    • British Writers KNIGHT REFERENCE PR85.B688.
    • Dictionary of Literary Biography KNIGHT REFERENCE various locations according to period and genre; see Reference Desk for help.
  • Periodicals
    • To get some idea of recent criticism about English literature, browse the journals in the Current Periodicals Reading Room on the second floor on Knight Library, in the call numbers starting with PR.
    • To read contemporary short stories and poetry by English authors, browse the magazines call numbers starting with AP 4.
  • Other Print Resources
    • For more information about key and recommended resources for literary research in the reference collection, see our growing list of humdingers.

Finding Articles

To look for articles in journals, you will need to start with an index or database. Indexes and databases allow you to look for articles by subject, author, or a few keywords that describe your topic. Articles the UO does not own can be quickly obtained through Interlibrary Loan.

Finding Books

  • UO Library Catalog
    Use the catalog to find books by keyword, title, or author, and to find journals and magazines owned by the UO Library. To find journal articles on your topic, use the databases listed in the section above. Once you have a citation, you can check the library catalog by doing a title search on the name of the journal to see if the library owns it.
  • Browse the shelves in the Knight Library.
    The English literature section is arranged chronologically and thematically on the third floor and fourth floors of Knight Library. Books about authors are shelved with their works.
    • Medieval literature - PR 1490 through PR 2165
    • Renaissance prose and poetry (1500 - 1640) - PR 2200 through PR 2405
    • Renaissance drama (1500 - 1640) - PR 2417 through PR 3195
    • Authors writing 1640 - 1770 - PR 3300 through PR 3785
    • Authors writing 1770 - 1900 - PR 4000 through PR 5925
    • Authors who began to publish first half of the 20th century - PR 6001 through PR 6049
    • Recent (last 50 years) novels, poetry, drama - PR 6051 through PR 6076
    It may be more efficient to begin by searching the UO Library Catalog in order to get a call number range to start browsing in.
  • Orbis Union Catalog
    Orbis is a consortium of libraries that doubles our collection. You can borrow books not owned by the UO Library by selecting the Request Item option. Orbis works only for books. If you want to request a journal articles, you'll need to fill out an interlibrary loan form.
  • WorldCat
    WorldCat provides access to library catalogs from around the world. The database contains bibliographic records describing books, journals, maps, musical scores, manuscripts, etc.
  • The English Short Title Catalogue lists all works published in Great Britain and its dependencies between 1473 and 1800. Click here for a guide to using the ESTC.

Finding Chapters in Books

  • MLA International Bibliography includes some chapters found in scholarly anthologies.
  • Essay and General Literature Index specializes in pointing to chapters in all kinds of anthologies, and often includes chapters not indentified by the MLA International Bibliography. The online version begins with material from 1985, print version is at KNIGHT REFERENCE AI 3 .E75.

Finding Stories and Poems

The catalog does not, generally speaking, contain records for individual stories or poems inside collections. This is not always true; in some cases (particularly for more recent works), a book's Table of Contents is included in its item record. This means that you can do a keyword search for a story or poem title and find the collection it is in.

Poetry: If doing a keyword search doesn't work, you can try searching in The Columbia Granger's Indexes to find out where a poem was published in a collection or anthology. These are print indexes in the reference collection; see the online guide to using them for more information.

Stories: If doing a keyword search doesn't work, you can try searching in Short Story Index, a series of books in the reference collection that lists stories in collections. The call number for one set in the series is Z 5917 .S5 C62; other series are nearby. Short Story Index covers story collections from 1900 to the 1990s.

If no method above works, it can sometimes be useful to do a Google search on the title of your poem or short story. Often you will find an online syllabus giving a citation for the collection or anthology that includes the work; then you can search the UO catalog for that book.

Web Resources

  • Reading literature online:
  • A list of literary terms produced by Jack Lynch at Rutgers University.
  • Writing Footnotes and Citing Your Sources:
  • The UO maintains a list of Nobel Prize winners, with biographical information and a list of their works here in Knight Library.
  • A free online etymological dictionary developed by a volunteer amateur etymologist, drawing from reputable print sources such as the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Eric Partridge's seminal Slang Today and Yesterday, and An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English.
  • Luminarium is an extensive, authoritative, beautifully-designed site devoted to Medieval, Renaissance, and seventeenth-century English literature. It draws extensively from the Norton Anthology of English Literature (6th edition.) Provides extensive links for research in all of these time periods, critical articles and essays by authorities and students, biographical information on authors, and primary materials online.
  • Renascence Editions is an online repository of works printed in English between 1477 and 1799. It provides text versions of primary documents, without biographical information or glosses. Created and maintained by Richard Bear at the University of Oregon.
  • TEAMS Middle English texts, created by The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages, offers general Web access to Middle English literature online. The collection currently includes approximately 300 annotated texts, omitting major "canonical" texts by Chaucer and Langland and concentrating on teaching editions of a wide range of literature that might otherwise not be easily accessible.
  • Dickinson electronic archives, hosted by the University of Virginia, provides primary documents stemming from Emily Dickinson's life and family, as well as secondary materials showing Dickinson's relation to many aspects of 19th-century life. Includes audio recordings of American poets reading Dickinson's work. Well-presented and easy to navigate.
Maintained by: Elizabeth Peterson, emp@uoregon.edu
Last Modified: 07/11/2008