Literary Theory

Guide to Searching Literature Databases

Searching online databases for literature articles can be confusing. Our Guide can help. 

• Guide to Searching Literature Databases 

• English 1102-Literature Database Search tips 

  Handout that outlines some basic research concepts and some specific tips for navigating the literature databases listed in this subject guide.

Try These Article Sources First

• Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window

  Literary reference and criticism resources of biographical, bibliographical, and critical content. Full text.

• MLA International Bibliography with Full Text This link opens in a new window

  Indexes articles on literature and language scholarship. Some full text available.

• JSTOR This link opens in a new window 

  Archive holds the complete digitized back runs of core scholarly journals, some dating as far back as the 1600s.

• Project Muse This link opens in a new window

  Full-text scholarly journal articles in the Humanities.

• ProQuest One Literature (formerly Literature Online Premium) This link opens in a new window

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  ProQuest One Literature is the destination for all aspects of literature research, teaching and learning—providing the best tools and content available in the market to support today’s study of literature. Formerly Literature Online Premium (LION).

Other Great Sources for Articles

• Salem Literature This link opens in a new window

  Reference articles and literary criticism on authors and their works from Salem Press.

• Dictionary of Irish Literature This link opens in a new window

  Includes profiles of more than 1,300 novelists, playwrights, humorists, politicians, publishers, and art organizations.

• Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window 

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  Locates articles from scholarly journals and popular magazines. Full text from 1990.

• Research Library at ProQuest This link opens in a new window

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  locates articles from scholarly journals and popular magazines. Full text from 1991.

• Gale Literary Index This link opens in a new window

  A starting point to locate authors and titles covered in the major literature products published by Gale. Notes volumes held by MGA.

• Humanities Full Text This link opens in a new window

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  Full text plus abstracts and indexing of the most noted scholarly sources in the humanities.

• Literary Reference Center Plus This link opens in a new window

  A full-text database that combines information from reference works, books, literary journals as well as original content from EBSCO Publishing. Literary Reference Center includes thousands of plot summaries, synopses, and work overviews; articles of literary criticism; author biographies; full text of over 430 literary journals; book reviews; classic and contemporary poems and short stories; full text of over 7,000 classic novels; author interviews; and images of key literary figures.

What if I Can't Find the Full Article?

• Find a Journal

  TRY THIS FIRST -- Search by journal or magazine title. If we have it in one of our databases, follow the links to the specific issue and article you need.

• InterLibrary Loan

  TRY THIS NEXT -- Request the article to be sent to you from another library.

Culture in Focus

• Culture in Focus: An International EJournal Of Educational, Literary And Cultural Studies

  Culture in Focus, an International eJournal of Educational, Literary and Cultural Studies, seeks to provide an important forum for scholarly interchange with original articles, book reviews and letters to the editor (shorter announcements, notes, queries and replies). We also welcome unpublished conference papers. Our goal is to publish high-quality original research that is both engaging and inspiring. This initiative forms a bridge between scholars from different backgrounds and different academic specialties. Although the journal is multilingual, articles in languages other than English, but with abstracts in English, will be accepted based upon the availability of readers / reviewers qualified in that language.