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Non-Western Literature Research Guide

Search the Online Catalog to FIND BOOKS.

  • Literary criticism is often published in book form or as a collection of essays.
  • Do a subject search using the author’s last name and then first name.
  • From the list of subjects that appear, choose Criticism and Interpretation or influence or other appropriate subject heading.

Search DATABASES to FIND ARTICLES in JOURNALS.

Literature Resource Center - DISCUS
This database provides biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of more than 120,000 authors from every age and literary discipline. Also contains Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, featuring definitions of literary terms.

Literary Reference Center - EBSCO
This database provides access to literary criticism, including plot summaries, synopses, and works overviews from Masterplots; also included are author biographies, author interviews, book reviews, a literary encyclopedia, and other reference works.

MLA International Bibliography
MLA has ibliographic records pertaining to literature, language, linguistics, and folklore. Access to research in over 3000 journals from 1926.

JSTOR
JSTOR is a collection of over 160 scholarly journal titles including more than 2,000,000 full-text articles on a wide range of topics. Both current articles and extensive backfiles are available.

Project Muse
Project MUSE offers nearly 250 quality journal titles from 40 scholarly publishers. As one of the academic community’s primary electronic journals resources, Project MUSE covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others.

Biography Resource Center

This database combines award-winning biographies from respected Gale Group sources. Biography Resource Center also includes full-text articles from hundreds of periodicals. Search for people based on one or more personal facts such as birth and death years and places, nationality, ethnicity, occupation or gender, or combine criteria to create a highly-targeted custom search path.

Academic Search Premier
The world’s largest academic multi-disciplinary database, Academic Search Premier provides full text for nearly 4,700 publications, including full text for more than 3,600 peer-reviewed journals. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles. This database is updated on a daily basis via EBSCOhost. You can search this database in conjunction with MLA International Bibliography.

Encyclopedia Britannica Online
Use this online encyclopedia to find overviews of an author or of a country’s literature. Also try the website search feature to find websites related to an author or country.

SIRS Knowledge Source
Click on Database Features, the white button near the top of the page. Look under the purple SIRS Government Reporter for Country Profiles.

Reference Materials

Reference materials are located in the library on the first floor.

  • Look for country information in the reference section based on the Library of Congress call number for that country. For example, information on Asian countries would be found in the DS section.
  • Reference Books on Countries and Cultures
    • Dictionary of First Names - Ref CS 2367 .H32
    • People’s Names - Ref CS 2305 .I54
    • CultureGrams - Ref GT 150 .C85
    • Encyclopedia of World Cultures - Ref GN 307 .E53
    • Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures & Daily Life - Ref GN333 .W67
  • Reference Books on Literary References and Allusions
    • 1500 Literary References Everyone Should Know - Ref PN43 .G66
    • Familiar Allusions - Ref AG5 .W48 1882a
    • Merriam-webster’s Dictionary of Allusions - Ref PN 43 .W384 1999
  • Major sources of literary criticism exist as critical summaries of an author’s work. Look for literary criticism works:
    • By Author: Refer to the Contemporary Authors Cumulative Index to find where criticism of an author’s works appears in many of the reference materials. (This index is kept at the reference desk. Ask a librarian for assistance.)
    • By Title: Refer to the cumulative title indexes for criticism of a specific novel, essay, poem, or short story. (These paperback indexes are kept at the reference desk. Ask a librarian for assistance.)
    • For additional assistance in finding literary criticism see the list of works on the Literary Criticism Research Guide.

Internet Resources

Country Studies: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/ (from the Library of Congress) Presents a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national securities for countries throughout the world. Note: Does not include EVERY nation. Some are somewhat out of date. We have many of the print equivalents in the library.

Voice of the Shuttle: http://vos.ucsb.edu/
Collection of Humanities Resources, maintained by the University of California, Santa Barbara, English Department. Use this site to look for websites related to a particular author or to the literature of a particular country.
Last modified on: September 14, 2007, at 05:21 AM