Poetry Criticism Research Guide

Critical articles and reviews that appear in scholarly journals, popular magazines, newspapers, and other serial publications are listed in periodical indexes or databases. These can be either in print or electronic format. Below is a select list of indexes that will lead you to citations, and, in some cases, to the full text of critical articles.

 America: History and Life 1964 - present

Contains citations to articles on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. A search for keywords such as "south and poet* and crit*" will bring up all variants of those words, including poets, poetry, poetics and critical, criticism, critique, and so forth.

  Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL)    

Main Ref Z2011 A5

The Modern Humanities Research Association's renowned bibliography provides an annual list of all scholarly articles, books and reviews concerning English language and literature and related topics published anywhere in the world. See next entry for the online version of ABELL.

  Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) 1920 - present

The online version of ABELL is one of many databases available through LION: Literature Online. The full text of articles is available in over 175 literature journals. Click on the book page or camera icons to view articles in full text.

  Arts and Humanities Citation Index 1975-present

A multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. It indexes nearly 2,000 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals. The database itself does not include full-text, but often the orange UC-eLinks will lead to the full text of the article.

  Black Literature Criticism

EGSL Ref PS153 N5 B556

  Book Review Digest 1983-present

An excellent source for current literary criticism, including abstracts of poetry reviews. You can do a general search by entering subject terms such as "english poetry history and criticism" or be more specific with a search such as "emily dickinson and crit* " . The * symbol will pick up variants of a word; in this case, critique, critic, criticisms and so forth.

  Cambridge Guide to Literature in English

Ref PR 85 C29 1992

  Center for Research Libraries

Provides access to more than five million volumes of research materials rarely held in North American libraries.

  Contemporary Women's Issues 1992-present

Covers over 1500 sources published by more than 200 organizations around the world. Includes reviews of feminist scholarship in literature and the arts.

  Essay & General Literature Index 1985-present

Provides access to nearly 45,000 English-language essays in 3,500 collections and anthologies.

  Expanded Academic ASAP 1980-present

Citations and full-text articles from thousands of scholarly, general interest, and popular journals. A keyword search for "crit* and irish poetry" , will look for articles on Irish poetry that appear in the literary journal Critique, as well as those that contain the words critic, criticism, critical and so forth.

  Historical Abstracts 1967-present

Citations and some full-text articles from 2,000 journals on world history (excluding the US and Canada) from 1450 to the present. From the Advanced search screen, try searching for "poets" or "poetry" in the subject text box, then add relevant keywords such as wordsworth or lyric to limit your search.

  Iter: Gateway to the Renaissance 1843-present

Iter contains approximately 135,000 records from scholarly journals pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Covers articles published from 1843 to the present.

  The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism

The online version of Johns Hopkins' Guide to Literary Theory, edited by Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth.

  JSTOR dates vary

An archive of the full-text content of scholarly journals from early editions to roughly 3-5 years from the present. Use the Advanced Search page.

  LION: Literature Online dates vary

A comprehensive resource for the study and teaching of English and American literature. LION contains the full text of more than 350,000 works of poetry, drama and prose written between the 7th century and the present day, and provides the full text of 175 literary journals. Includes bibliographic, biographical and secondary information. The Poets On Screen Library contains nearly 1,000 clips of poets reading their own and other poets' work.

  Literary Criticism Index

Ref PN523 W45 1994

  Literature Resource Center dates vary

Access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of more than 120,000 authors from every age and literary discipline. The Advanced page allows you to limit your search in a number of ways, such as by type (e.g. critical essay) or the source (e.g. from the Dictionary of Literary Biography). The tab labeled "Literary Criticism, Articles & Work Overviews" is worth exploring.

  Magill's Bibliography of Literary Criticism

Ref Z6511 M25

  MLA International Bibliography 1963-present

MLA is one of the first places to start in a search for literary criticism of all types. The online version of this renowned index covers articles written from 1963 to the present; for earlier works use the print version (see entry below). This is a citation index (no full text) covering the world's research literature in language, linguistics, literature, and folklore in all languages. Access to scholarly research in over 3,000 journals, series, monographs, working papers, proceedings, bibliographies, and other formats. The scope is so large that you may want to first limit your search by language, format, or year.

  MLA International Bibliography

Main Ref Z7006 M6

  New York Times Index

Main Ref AI21.N44

  19th Century Masterfile 1800-early 1900s

The web version of Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, 19th Century Masterfile has expanded into a collection of databases indexing various forms of literature and government documents. Includes full text links to Harper's Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and North American Review.

  Periodicals Index Online 1665-1995

An index to millions of articles from over 4,250 periodicals in the humanities and social sciences. Scope is worldwide and includes journals in most Western languages. The full-text version (Periodicals Archive Online) is considerably smaller but also worth exploring.

  Project MUSE Journals dates vary

A searchable index of over 180 university press journals. Searching is available by author, year, journal title and keywords from titles, subjects or full-text.

  Voice of the Shuttle

Considered by most to be the best humanities resource on the Web, maintained by Alan Liu at UCSB and including countless links to literary and general humanities websites. Use the box in the upper right to experiment: a search for ballads, for example, will bring up new categories additional links that you can explore.

  Year's Work in English Studies

Ref PR13 E5 Y9

Book Review Digest	Ref Z1219 B65
Book Review Index	Ref Z1219 B66
Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews	Ref Z1035.A1 C64
Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities	Ref Z1219 I5
Gale Literary Criticism Series	Ref PN 141.D52
New York Times Index	Ref AI21.N44
Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature	Ref AI3 R45

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Reference Works

American and British Poetry: A Guide to Criticism 1925-1978	Ref Z 1231 P7 A44
British Romantic Poets, 1789-1832	Ref PN 141 D52 vol.96
Cambridge Guide to Literature in English	Ref PR 85 C29 1992
Cambridge History of English Literature	Ref PR 83 C3
Common Knowledge: a .... Guide to Literary Allusions	Ref PN 43 G68 1987
Concise Encyclopedia of English and American Poets and Poetry	Ref PR 19 S6
Contemporary Authors	Ref CT 100 C6
Contemporary Literary Criticism	Ref PN 771 C59
Critical Survey of Poetry: English Language Series	Ref PR 502 C85
Critical Survey of Poetry: Foreign Language Series	Ref PN 41 C7
The Critical Temper: a Survey of Modern Criticism	Ref PR83 C68
Crowell's Handbook of Contemporary American Poetry	Ref PS 323.5 M3
Dictionary of Literary Themes and Motifs. 2 vols.	Ref PN 43 D48 1988
Encyclopedia of American Poetry	Ref PS 323.5 E53 2001
Glossary of Literary Terms	Ref Ref PN 41 A184 1993
Guide to American Poetry Explication: Colonial and 19th Century	Ref Z 1231 P7 R66
Guide to American Poetry Explication: Modern and Contemporary	Ref Ref Z 1231 P7 M34
Longman Dictionary of Poetic Terms	Ref PN 1042 M94
Masterplots II: Poetry Series	Ref Ref PN 1110.5 M37 1992
The New Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism	Ref PR85 N39 1985
New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics	Ref PN 1021 N39 1993
Oxford Companion to 20th-Century Poetry in English	Ref PR 601 O9 1994
Poetry Criticism	Ref PN 1010 P499 vol.16
Poetry Explication: A Checklist of Interpretation	Ref Z2014 P7 K8 1980
Poetry Handbook: A Guide to Reading Poetry	Ref PR 502 L38
Poets: American and British	Ref PS 303 P64 1998 vol. 1
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics	Ref PN 1021 N39 1993

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Biographies of Poets

Afro American Poets Since 1955	Ref PN141 D52 v.41
American Poets 1880-1945	Ref PN141 D52 v. 45, 54
American Poets Since World War II	Ref PN141 D52 v. 5, 120, 165, 169, 193
American Women Writers	Ref PS147 A42 2000
American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies	Ref PS129 A55
The Beats	Ref PN141 D52 v. 16
Biography Resource Center
British Poets 1880-1914	Ref PN141 D52 v. 19
British Poets 1914-1945	Ref PN141 D52 v.20
British Romantic Poets 1789-1832	Ref PN141 D52 v. 93, 96
British Writers	Ref PR85 B688
Contemporary Authors	Ref CT100 C64
Dictionary of Literary Biography	Ref PN141 D52
Literature Online (LION)
Literature Resource Center
Longman Dictionary of Poets	Ref PN1111 B6
Poets of Great Britain and Ireland Since 1960	Ref PN141 D52 v. 40
20th-Century Author Biographies Master Index	Ref Z5304 A8 T83
Victorian Women Poets	Ref PN141 D52 v. 199
Who's Who in 20th Century World Poetry	Ref PN1271 W46 2000

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Full-text Poetry Databases

  Literature Online

  20th-Century African American Poetry

  African American Poetry (1750 - 1900)

  20th-Century American Poetry

  20th-Century English Poetry

  American Poetry (600 - 1900)

  English Poetry (600 - 1900)

  Representative Poetry On-Line (University of Toronto)

  American Verse Project (University of Michigan)

  Bartleby.com - Commercial site with full-text

  Sonnets.org

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Internet Resources

  American Verse Project (Univ. Michigan Humanities Text Initiative)

  British Poetry 1780 – 1910 (Electronic Text Center / Univ. Virginia)

  Internet Public Library: Literary Criticism Guide

  The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism

  The Labyrinth: A Disciplinary Server for Medieval Studies

  Literary Resources on the Net (Jack Lynch, Rutgers University)

  Modern American Poetry (Dept. of English, Univ. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

  Online Literary Criticism Collection

  Perspectives in American Literature (PAL)

  Poetry Daily

  Voice of the Shuttle (Alan Liu, UCSB)

  Yahoo’s Literary Authors Listing

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Finding Books at UCSB

PEGASUS is the online catalog for the UCSB Libraries. A good way to begin is by using a keyword search. Depending on the nature of your search, you may want to use terms such as criticism, literature or interpretation. Examples:

• keyword: american slave poetry
• keyword: french poetry interpretation
• keyword: lyrical ballads
• keyword: allegor* in poetry (the * symbol brings up alternate endings of the word, such as allegorical, allegory or allegories)

Subject searches in the library catalog require a very precise vocabulary because they are linked directly to Library of Congress subject headings. To find criticism about a particular author, use the author's name as a subject, then scroll through the list of subheadings, one of which will be "criticism and interpretation". For general works on poetry analysis and criticism, use a "subject begins with" search and browse from within the subheadings.

• subject: walcott, derek—criticism and interpretation
• subject: american poetry—african american authors—history and criticism
• subject: english poetry—20th century
• subject: poets, english—early modern 1500 - 1700

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