Comparative Literature and Society: Reference & Background Info
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General Reference
Authoritative guides, written by leading experts, offering surveys on major writers, artists, philosophers, topics, and periods. Excellent bibliographies and background information.
Provides full text online access to the complete 250-plus volumes of Cambridge Histories reference series. Provides political, economic and social history, philosophy and literature of selected countries and subjects.
Offers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on specific topics in a range of subject areas. There are at least 50 specific topical bibliographies in each subject area. Each of these features an introduction to the topic. Bibliographies are browsable by subject area and keyword searchable.
Authoritative surveys of current research in thinking in a variety of fields and disciplines. Essays and bibliographies produced by leading scholars. Examples include Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics, Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture, Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema, etc.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
Database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
Specialized Reference
Dictionary of Literary Biography
Provides biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, and careers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genres.
Johns Hopkins guide to literary theory & criticism
A full-text searchable database of articles on individual critics and theorists, critical and theoretical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods. It also treats related persons and fields that have been shaped by or have themselves shaped literary theory and criticism. Each entry includes a selective primary and secondary bibliography.
Motif-index of Folk Literature (originally published in 1950s)
A classification of narrative elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends
Routledge Dictionaries and Critical Companions
Focusing on theory, literary terms, movements, philosophies, etc. Examples include Dictionary of Critical Realism, Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory, Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism.