Research Guide for English Studies

Literature

Argumentation Literary Analysis and Criticism Creative: Fiction, Poetry, and Drama Non-fiction writing Business and Technical

Contemporary Theories of Grammar History and Development of the English Language Rhetoric and Composition Theory Semantics, Sociolinguistics, and Language Acquisition

To view many of the sites on these pages, click on the graphic!

Bartleby.com includes the online publication of all eighteen volumes of the classic Cambridge History of English and American Literature. "This excellent free resource 'comprises the largest public reference work of literary criticism and history on the Internet'. Originally published in 1907-1921, the volumes include 303 chapters and more than 11,000 pages, edited and written by a worldwide panel of 171 leading scholars and thinkers of the early twentieth century. The online version features over 5,600 files, searchable by keyword and browseable by volume, chapter, and section. The electronic Cambridge History also includes chapter and bibliography indexes. Although a bit dated in parts, these eighteen volumes are a valuable, and now easily accessible, research tool for secondary and university students."

"The EServer is a unique website where 226 writers, artists, editors and scholars gather to publish and discuss their works (currently 32436 of them in all). The EServer (founded in 1990 at Carnegie Mellon University as the English Server) attempts to provide an alternative niche for quality work. Now based at Iowa State University, we offer 44 collections on such diverse topics as contemporary art, race, Internet studies, sexuality, drama, design, multimedia, accessible publishing and current political and social issues. In addition to written works, we publish hypertext, audio and even video recordings." Provides a search gateway to Project Gutenberg, Voice of the Shuttle, Bartlett's Quotations, and other useful collections.

Literary Resources on the Net
Jack Lynch, English Department, Rutgers University-Newark. "This set of pages is a collection of links to sites on the Internet dealing especially with English and American literature, excluding most single electronic texts, and is limited to collections of information useful to academics — I've excluded most poetry journals, for instance."

Among the most repected humanities sites on the Web by Alan Liu, English Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, with a team of department graduate students. Each page includes a search engine which produces lists of links to your chosen topic. This site includes annotated links to a variety of literatures:

Literature (in English)
Literatures (Other Than English)
Literary Theory

African Literature

An extensive, annotated web site by Karen Fung, Stanford University Libraries.
See also South Africa: Literature.

African-American Literature

"JSTOR has available this title in its collection of full-text, online journals. African American Review, the quarterly publication of the Division on Black American Literature and Culture of the Modern Language Association, is published by Indiana State University, and includes Volumes 1-33, 1967-1999. AAR continues Black American Literature Forum (1976-1991) and Negro American Literature Forum (1967-1976)." Internet Scout Report

African American Women Writers of the 19th Century "From the New York Public Library, a wonderful selection of works: poetry, fiction,biography and autobiography, as well as essays. Includes information on the text, as well as the actual electronic editions of their works. Site is a part of the Digital Schomburg project and includes over 52 authors' and works. The site is organized partially around frames which makes navigation easy; also includes a non-frame version." Dr. Michael O'Conner, Millikin University.

African American Writers: Online E-texts
While this site was designed for younger students, the invaluable collection of links will be helpful to any student of African American Literature. Includes biographical information as well as the writings of a host of African-American writers, ranging over time from Jupiter Hammon in the 1700s to contemporary writers.

"Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. This online collection is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs Divisions of the Library of Congress and includes more than 200 photographs from the Prints and Photographs Division that are now made available to the public for the first time."

"First-Person Narratives of the American South is a collection of diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives written by Southerners. The majority of materials in this collection are written by those Southerners whose voices were less prominent in their time, including African Americans, women, enlisted men, laborers, and Native Americans."

"North American Slave Narratives collects books and articles that document the individual and collective story of African Americans struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. This collection includes all the existing autobiographical narratives of fugitive and former slaves published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920. Also included are many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves and some significant fictionalized slave narratives published in English before 1920."

English Literature

British Poetry 1780-1910: a Hypertext Archive of Scholarly Editions
Electronic Text Center, Alderman Library, University of Virginia.

"Showcasing works by British women poets, this University of California-Davis site is a haven for scholars, students, and fans of the Romantic period. The goal of the project is the "design and development of highly accurate and reliable electronic editions of works published by British women poets between 1789 and 1832" with the initial texts coming from the UC-Davis Library's Kohler Collection of British Poetry, housed in the Department of Special Collections. Texts are selected with input from the project's Editorial Advisory Board (listed at the site) made up of scholars in the United States and Canada. The texts (there are 36 presently, with new titles being added) can be accessed via a listing of authors; some texts consist of whole books (several hundred pages) and some, a single poem. The creators have gone to great lengths to make the HTML versions as accurate as possible, including notations about special features or characters not included in the HTML version and scanned pages from the actual works which can be enlarged for greater detail. SGML versions of each piece are also available. Information about how to access the original works in the Kohler Collection is also included online as well as a list of links to related Web-based resources." Internet Scout Report



"Founded in 1981, the Dickens Project at the University of California-Santa Cruz, promotes the study and enjoyment of the life and work of Charles Dickens. With a research focus on both Dickens and the Victorian age, the Project disseminates research results through a combination of publications, institutes and its annual conference -- The Dickens Universe. The 2003 conference, held this weekend, will focus on the The Old Curiosity Shop. Links to overviews of prior conferences are available from the project's well organized Web site. Also provided are a succinct list of appropriate links, information on Dickens-related organizations, and media and text materials suitable for integrating Dickens into the classroom." Internet Scout Report

"Luminarium combines three sites first created in 1996, ages ago in Web years, by Anniina Jokinen. Here users will find texts and supplemental materials for Medieval, Renaissance, and seventeenth-century British literature. The site is well laid out and has an internal search engine for easy retrieval of specific items. Clicking on one of the three periods brings up a list of authors (or in the case of Medieval literature, also lyrics, plays, and anonymous works such as Everyman), a link to essays and articles, and a link to additional resources such as cultural information, art, and so on. For each author, a wealth of links lead to biographical information, texts, secondary sources, and more. The links are mostly external, but they are clearly marked as such. Jokinen diligently updates her site, and it should prove a valuable resource to anyone interested in pre-eighteenth-century literature." Internet Scout Report

Click on the graphic below for each Luminarium site:

"A searchable bibliographic database of over 8,000 citations of 'both primary and secondary sources of religious aspects and backgrounds of English literature from the Middle Ages to the present' (with an emphasis on the Anglican tradition and the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries). There is also a collection of electronic texts of 'important English devotional and liturgical books' and links to related sites." By William S. Peterson, Professor Emeritus of English, University of Maryland.
Librarians' Index to the Internet

TEAMS Middle English Texts
"This site contains hundreds of Middle English texts including lyrics, poems, and tales such as 'The Prophecy of Merlin', and 'Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham'. Each text is edited to 'maintain the linguistic integrity of the original works', and includes notes, translations, and an introduction. From the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS), the University of Rochester (New York), and Medieval Institute Publications." Librarians' Index to the Internet

American Literature

"The purpose of all the American literature pages is to provide useful, interesting, commercial-free information on the subject and to provide links to the best information available for American literature from the earliest days through the 1920s. For each author page, I try to provide links to all available works on the web, except when these have been gathered by some major site (such as UC Berkeley's site on Jack London.) Most author pages have bibliographies and some additional information. The Timeline pages provide brief statements (as factually correct as possible) about events in American history and literary history." Donna M. Campbell, Department of English, Gonzaga University.

An extensive resource by Mitsuharu Matsuoka, Graduate School of Languages and Cultures, Nagoya University, Japan.



"This folklore site contains retellings of American folktales, Native American myths and legends, tall tales, weather folklore and ghost stories from each and every one of the 50 United States...This site was created as part of a graduate study at Rutgers the State University of New Jersey in October 1997. It contains one or more folktales from each state. The target audiences are storytellers, teachers, folklore fans and students needing state folklore for school projects. The site is updated regularly. The folktales were rewritten by S. E. Schlosser."



American Literary Movements
Donna M. Campbell, Department of English, Gonzaga University.

American Literature: Selected Bibliographies
Donna M. Campbell, Department of English, Gonzaga University.



American Literature Sites
Donna M. Campbell, Department of English, Gonzaga University.

American Transcendentalism Web
"Maintained by Professor Ann Woodlief at Virginia Commonwealth University, this site was created to serve as a gathering place for information and primary documents about the transcendentalist movement in American literature and philosophy during the 19th century. Along with profiles of some of the main persons associated with the movement, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, the site also has full-text editions of some of their books, essays, and poems. Beyond the portraits and writings of these influential writers, there are also essays on other thematic topics such as "The Transcendental Legacy in Philosophy and Religion." A resource that will be useful for students doing research on transcendentalists is an extended bibliography that lists a variety of additional scholarly works on the subject. In addition, if users are so compelled, the site has links to other sites where they can join electronic discussion groups on the transcendentalists."
Internet Scout Report

"...an American history series that looks at the lives and works of selected American writers who have chronicled, reflected upon, or influenced the course of our nation." Sections include: Founding to Revolution; The Young Nation; Slavery & the Civil War; Rebuilding American & the Gilded Age; Progressive Era & Reaction."

"C-Span brings together writers, scholars, historians and actors to examine the lives and work of selected Twentieth Century American Writers who have influenced our nation's history." Sections include: Progressive Era & Reaction; Depression & War; Early Cold War; Social Transformation to Vietnam.

"The Library of Southern Literature includes a wide range of literary works of the American South published before 1924. This collection was originally based on Dr. Robert Bain's bibliography of the hundred most important Southern literary works and continues to expand under the guidance of scholarly advisors Dr. Joseph M. Flora and Dr. William L. Andrews. This collection begins with some of the earliest texts about America written by British discoverers that set the foundation for American letters and traces the development of Southern literature through to the beginning of the twentieth century."

"Sponsored by the Western Literature Association, Texas Christian University Press posts the complete text of A Literary History of the American West -- a 1,300+-page compendium of scholarly articles on the literature of the American West and Midwest. The volume is divided into three sections discussing the encounter with the frontier, the settlement of the West, and the "re-discovery" of the West in terms of its ethnic peoples and identifications. Though published in 1987 and no longer in print, this online text still serves as a valuable critical resource in literary regional history. Articles are available for individual download in both HTML and .pdf formats." Internet Scout Report

"Materials accessible here are Cornell University Library's contributions to Making of America (MOA), a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. ...This site provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints."

The American Studies Web: Literature and Text Studies
"Crossroads is an international networking and curriculum innovation project of the American Studies Association with sponsorship from Georgetown University and in collaboration with Washington State University."

PAL: Perspectives in American Literature - A Research and Reference Guide
An Ongoing Project by Paul P. Reuben, Department of English, California State University, Stanislaus. "This review of American literary history offers primary and secondary bibliographies for the major periods and figures of American Literature. In addition, Reuben gives brief but pointed discussions along with study questions of key concepts and figures. The appendix includes resources for research, an MLA style guide, a bibliography for the elements of poetry, fiction, and drama, and other bibliographies for topics such as Minorities and Women Studies, The Frontier in American Literature, and Film Criticism and American Literature. The site also features useful links to specific subject sites in American Literature and good online sources for literary texts." Internet Scout Report

"This fine resource uses radio dramatizations produced by the Public Media Foundation to teach prominent texts by American women writers -- the same writers Nathaniel Hawthorne, fearing for his livelihood, cursed as a 'damned mob of scribbling women'. Currently, the Website offers dramatizations of three texts: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman, A Wagner Matinee by Willa Cather, and A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell. In addition to the full audio (offered in RealPlayer) of the radio dramatizations, each dramatization is accompanied by an essay offering a literary interpretation and another discussing the work's literary and historical context. Further reading, a biography, and sample lesson plans are also posted. Seven other works are also covered on-site, containing all of the above materials with the exception of the audio dramatization. These works are The Schoolmaster's Progress by Caroline Kirkland, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis, A Whisper in the Dark by Louisa May Alcott, Louisa by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Hate is Nothing by Marita Bonner, and The Bones of Louella Brown by Ann Petry." Internet Scout Report

Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events: Pre-1620 to 1920 by Donna M. Campbell, Department of English, Gonzaga University.

Asian Literature

"This extensive bibliography was developed 'to assist teacher, students, and the general public in their Asian Pacific American research projects'. It is arranged by ethnicity (Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, South East Asian, Asian Indian) and audience level (pre-school to adult). It includes fiction, nonfiction, and some video and other nonprint resources. From The Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle, Washington." Librarians' Index to the Internet

"Annotated links to over 600 sites relating to China, Chinese language and linguistics, and general linguistics. Maintained by a professor of East Asian languages and literature at Ohio State University." Librarians' Index to the Internet

Asian-American Literature

"This extensive bibliography was developed "to assist teacher, students, and the general public in their Asian Pacific American research projects." It is arranged by ethnicity (Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, South East Asian, Asian Indian) and audience level (pre-school to adult). It includes fiction, nonfiction, and some video and other nonprint resources. From The Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle, Washington." Librarians' Index to the Internet

The latest edition of U.S. Society and Values, an electronic journal of the State Department, is dedicated to writings on contemporary multicultural literature. Scholars and writers reflect upon the meaning of multiculturalism in contemporary American literature and review the dominant contemporary strains. There are articles here devoted to "Arab American, Asian American, black American, Hispanic American and Native American writing." Each article includes sidebars that give brief introductions to central figures and sometimes provide a more in-depth look at one particular author. Internet Scout Report

Eighteenth Century Literature

Eighteenth-Century Resources — Literature
"This page, edited by Jack Lynch of Rutgers – Newark, is part of the larger collection of Eighteenth-Century Resources on the Net." Includes an extensive collection of E-texts.

Eighteenth-Century Studies " This collection archives works of the eighteenth century from the perspectives of literary and cultural studies. Novels, plays, memoirs, treatises and poems of the period are kept here (in some cases, influential texts from before 1700 or after 1800 as well), along with modern criticism."

Genres: Fiction, Poetry, and Drama

"Provides searchable and browsable texts of the 50-volume Harvard Classics and the 20-volume Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, originally published between 1909 and 1917. The site claims these materials 'cover every major literary figure, philosopher, religion, folklore and historical subject through the twentieth century'. Many works include introductions and indexes. Also includes Lectures on the Harvard Classics. From Bartleby.com." Librarians' Index to the Internet



"This is a collection of 19th century American fiction, as listed in Lyle Wright's bibliography American Fiction, 1851-1875. The Wright American Fiction online collection attempts to include every novel published in the United States from 1851 to 1875. It includes works by well known writers such as Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, along with a great many forgotten authors, whose works may have been very popular in their own time. There are currently 2,887 volumes included (1,914 unedited, 973 fully edited and encoded) by 1,450 authors."

Bartleby Verse: American and English Poetry, 1250-1920 "The New Bartleby Library has added the texts of five additional poetry anthologies covering American and English poetry, 1250-1920, to its Verse page, which previously hosted The Oxford Book of English Verse (see the August 23, 1996 Scout Report). The new additions include the Yale Book of American Verse (1912), Modern British Poetry (1920), Modern American Poetry (1919), Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the 17th Century (1921), and the Golden Treasury (1875). All six anthologies are searchable by keyword or browsable by author (chronological or alphabetical), title, or first line. The anthologies are, of course, highly selective and reflect the period in which they were originally published, representing the canon as it stood in the first quarter of this century." Internet Scout Report

Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings: Poetry

Harry Rusche, English Department, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, is the author of Lost Poets of the Great War, a hypertext document on the poetry of World War I.

"Annotated collection of links to information on the Internet. Ordered by: Texts, Articles, and Books; Performance, Set design, Props Make-up, and Discussion groups Costumes, Illustrated material; Music Dance Instruments; Other Medieval Drama Lists; and Other Theatre links." Librarians' Index to the Internet

Literary Criticism

"This is a bibliography of literary studies, criticism and philology, listing over 135,000 items (books, book chapters, articles, films, etc.), with a main focus on English-speaking authors and criticism or literary theory written in English, although there are many listings on linguistics, cultural studies, discourse analysis and other philological subjects. It includes bibliographical information on several thousand authors, critical schools, literary and linguistic concepts, and other subjects." By José Ángel García Landa, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain

Critical Reading: A Guide
"John Lye, a professor in the Departments of English and Communication Studies at Brock University (Canada), offers this resource designed for beginning literature students. Critical Guide contains sections on poetry, fiction, prose in fiction, and writing analytical essays. Though not exhaustive, this guide forms a useful framework to help beginning students think critically about the literature they are reading." Internet Scout Report

Glossary of Literary and Rhetorical Terms
Jack Lynch, English Department, Rutgers University-Newark.

In Other Words: a Lexicon of the Humanities
An online reference source of terms used in several related areas: literary criticism; linguistics; rhetoric; and identity politics. The lexicon aims to provide scholars with the necessary terminology to allow them to cross over from one discipline to another and to understand the generally accepted reference terms of other disciplines. The lexicon provides a basic glossary area for provisional definitions; a collection of quotes from authors illustrating the use of terms; and a bibliography of all the sources cited.

Literary Criticism
"The well-known Internet Public Library has added this new collection to its powerful information lineup. This literary metasite contains over 1,000 annotated metasites and articles devoted to literary criticism, biographical, and other information about 123 authors from Dante Alighieri to Arthur Miller to William Butler Yeats. The links to criticism information can be to sites or articles (some of which have access restrictions). Visitors can browse the site by author, title, or literary period (for British and American literature). In addition, both a literary criticism guide and a pathfinder are provided for those who wish to further explore web and print resources on the topic." Internet Scout Report

Native American Literature

"This site was conceived with a very particular aim: to make the writing of modern Native American authors, particularly the poets, both more visible and more widely available. Toward that end, the sites residing on this server have been made with the collaboration of the authors. The authors see the sites before they are made public, edit these pages, contribute additional material, and select, or at least help to select, their work which is made available to be read online. They are able to control their own image to a greater degree than they are able to in book cover and other advertising material, even better than they are sometimes able to in published interviews. They also maintain the copyright to all of their own material."

Nineteenth Century Literature

"This companion to a class at Brooklyn College provides an introduction to the writings of Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and William Makepeace Thackeray. Also features annotated links to related sites." Librarians' Index to the Internet

"An offshoot of the VICTORIA discussion list and hosted by Indiana University, this site is designed to assist researchers, teachers, and students studying nineteenth century Britain. Users will find a number of helpful items such as a guide to Victorian holdings in selected archives, book reviews on-line, bibliographies, a guide to using the new British Library, tips on planning a research trip, sample syllabi, and a guide to major journals in the field. Additional resources include a list of related discussion groups and a search engine for the VICTORIA archives. VICTORIA equally welcomes the contributions of students of literature, social history, politics, gender studies, publishing, art, and intellectual history in "the long 19th century." Internet Scout Report



"Designed and maintained by Lee Jackson, an author and librarian, the Victorian Dictionary is a useful resource on Victorian London history during the 19th century. This site contains over 40 categories that range from architecture, to clothing and fashions, to dates and events, to entertainment and recreation, to words and expressions. The site also contains a bibliography containing most of the resources used for the site, as well as links to other related sites. In brief, this site is a helpful resource for those working on and interested in the history of the Victorian age." Internet Scout Report



"The objective of the Victorian Women Writers Project (VWWP), an initiative affiliated with Indiana University's Library Electronic Text Resource Service (LETRS), is to transcribe the written work of nineteenth-century British women authors ... The Victorian texts in the collection are selected by an intercollegiate advisory board of experts. The scope of the project encompasses novels, poetry, verse drama, political pamphlets, religious tracts, and children's books. The VWWP collection currently contains over 100 complete works by over 30 different writers. More texts are being processed, and the site maintains a list of proposed transcriptions." Internet Scout Report

Literature of Western Society

American, Canadian, Australian and Irish Literature and Culture Sites
An annotated guide from MIT Libraries.

Classical and Medieval Literature Site
An annotated guide from MIT Libraries.

"Information about significant authors hailing from Cities of Culture for the year 2000, as designated by the European Union. The public libraries of Bergen, Bologna, Brussels, Helsinki, Krakow, Prague, and Reykjavik have each contributed general and bibliographical details relating to prominent writers of their region." BUBL LINK Catalogue of Internet Resources

Short Story Criticism

Short Story Criticism
Winnie Shyam, Buley Library, Southern Connecticut State University.

World Mythologies

"The Encyclopedia Mythica is an online encyclopedia on mythology, folklore, and legends. It currently contains over 6,100 entries on gods and goddesses, heroes, legendary creatures and beings from all over the world."



Kathleen Jenks, Retired Faculty Member of the Mythological Studies Department, Pacifica Graduate Institute, this site includes an annotated and illustrated collection of online resources for mythologies, fairy tales and folklore, sacred arts and traditions.

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