American Literature: A Guide to Resources: Specialized Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

Based on an extensive reading program that has identified the most commonly-used allusions. All entries have at least one illustrative citation from a range of source materials.

The entries in this handbook "are designed to be factual and informative, biographical and bibliographical" and represent "a core list of those writers, works, and movements of which some knowledge is essential to all serious students of American literature." (Preface) Includes a brief chronology and a Select Bibliography of the most important critical and historical studies of American literature of the last 50 years.

Traces the development of women's literature in the U.S. from American indian women's writing to the present day, including coverage of Asian-American, Jewish-American, Latina, and LGBTQ writers.

Provides alphabetically arranged entries on major Chicano authors and important topics in the study of Chicano literature. The term "Chicano literature" is defined as the literary output of Mexican-Americans since 1848. Each author entry includes brief biographic information, a discussion of major works, a bibliography of the authors writings, and sources of criticism.

"This book outlines America's rich literary past while also identifying larger trends along the literary timeline. Concise entries describe an author's major works for a particular year while placing them within the larger context of that writer's career." Coverage extends from the Colonial Period beginning in 1582 through the mid-20th century.

Emphasizing criticism as opposed to theory, essays cover a wide array of themes (e.g., African American short story -- Asian American short story -- Chicano-Latino short story -- Ecological short story -- Lesbian and gay short stories -- Native American short story -- American short stories of the Holocaust) and over 100 individual authors. Author essays are arranged alphabetically and include biographies, as well as critical overviews of their works. Indexed.

One-volume reference for all periods of American literature.

A dictionary describing the significant characters in major American novels. An index lists characters by author and novel.

Provides definitions and some illustrations of terms related to the study of post-1450 manuscripts in the English-speaking world, including terminology related to physical forms and features, condition, writing instruments, scripts, containers, editing, paleography, postal features and more.

...centered primarily on Western literature. Covering 175 symbols, entries are complemented by quotations and citations. Alphabetically arranged, words are defined and their uses in literature are explored. Extensively cross-referenced with a list of authors cited and a bibliography.1999 edition online in Ebrary.

The encyclopedia facilitates access to facts about major literary works, characters, authors, themes, vessels, places, and ideas that are central to American sea literature. Each of the several hundred entries is written by an expert contributor and many provide bibliographical information. While the encyclopedia includes entries for white male canonical writers such as Herman Melville and Jack London, it also gives considerable attention to women at sea and to ethnically diverse authors, works, and themes. The volume concludes with a chronology and a list of works for further reading.

"contains over 400 entries that treat a broad range of individual poets and poems, along with many articles devoted to topics, schools, or periods of American verse in the century. Entries fall into three main categories: poet entries, which provide biographical and cultural contexts for the author's career; entries on individual works, which offer closer explication of the most resonant poems in the 20th-century canon; and topical entries, which offer analyses of a given period of literary production, school, thematically constructed category, or other verse tradition that historically has been in dialogue with the poetry of the United States." (publisher)

Delivers a focused and in-depth collection of essays on some of the most significant and influential authors and literary subjects of the last four decades. Cutting-edge entries from established and new voices discuss subjects as varied as multiculturalism, contemporary regionalisms, realism after poststructuralism, indigenous narratives, globalism, and big data in the context of American fiction from the last 40 years.

"Coverage includes authors, genres, and works, as well as on the musical artists, fashion designers, directors, and other figures who make up the context of Hip Hop literatu

"Covers British and Irish fiction, American fiction, and World fiction, including major writers and their works; the genres and sub-genres of fiction (including crime fiction, sci fi, chick lit, the noir novel, and the avant garde novel); and the major movements, debates, and rubrics within the field." [publisher]

Alphabetically arranged, signed entries on 20th American poets and schools of poetry also contain selected bibliographies of secondary material.

"...more than 700 alphabetically arranged entries on individual Latino/a writers, genres, ethnic and national literatures, movements, historical topics and events, themes, concepts, associations and organizations, and publishers and magazines. Special attention is given to the cultural, political, social, and historical contexts in which Latino literature has developed. Entries cite works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography." (publisher)

5 vols. Included are more than 1100 alphabetically arranged entries by more than 300 scholars. While most of the entries are biographical, others cover genres, ethnic stereotypes, seminal works, significant places, major historical events, key pieces of legislation, and other topics.

"An A to Z compilation of 415 literary terms, ages, movements, periods, and cultural sources, all cross-referenced....Definitions provide substantive discussion and cite specific examples from the works of major critics and major and minor writers from the 1700s to the present... Eight full-length essays, which serve as introductions to important aspects of literary theory and criticism, cover major terms... In addition to discussions of the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement, the book describes the Chicago Renaissance of the 1930s to 1950s, the New Renaissance of the 1950s, and the new black aesthetics of the 1980s..[also includes]a literary timeline, divided into sections for African, African American, and Anglophone Caribbean literature that illustrates what was written during the same years in different parts of the world. The book also lists awards and honors given to African American authors." (publisher)

Entries were contributed by more than 130 scholars and include biographies of novelists, playwrights, poets and critics, summaries of books and plays, descriptions of characters, definitions of literary terms and movements, and more. Features hundreds of longer essays on broad topics of interest such as Native American Prose and Poetry, Jewish American Literature, Humor in the United States, and Motion Pictures.

Provides a detailed historical overview of Hispanic literature in the United States from the Spanish colonial period to the present, as well as biographical profiles for more than 100 authors. Separate chapters discuss significant movements and themes, Hispanic drama, and publishing trends. Bibliography. Indexed.

2nd edition. Includes entries on writers, movements, forms of writing and textual strategies, critical ideas, cultural processes, and texts that are significant in relation to postmodernist literature. Also provides a chronology and an extensive bibliography.

An encyclopedia of Native American literatures featuring articles on individual authors, on individual works, on important characters in works, and on terms and events of historical significance that figure in many of the works.

A ready reference work in dictionary format. It includes short biographies of American authors with lists of their major works, and information regarding their style and subjects. Provides summaries of American novels, essays, and poems as well as definitions and outlines of literary schools and movements.

Provides a comprehensive survey of women writers across four centuries of American history...Personal, cultural, and historical issues, such as AIDS, racism, sexual harassment, and the Civil War, are examined alongside accounts of women publishing and contemporary literary theory, such as black feminism, lesbian literary theory, and deconstruction. [publisher's description]

4 vols. Contains essays on US poets, playwrights, essayists, and novelists. Figures such as Whitman, Melville, and Morrison are discussed in detail and examined in the context of their times, with an assessment of the writer's current reputation, a bibliography of major works, and a list of major critical and biographical works about the writer.

More than one hundred original and in-depth articles survey the historical foundations of this rich field, showing the exciting and profound new directions that currently drive the study of Asian American literary and cultural traditions.

From Chicana/o identity to Caribbean and Central American diasporic literature, from key figures in Latina/o letters to bilingual texts and graphic novels, this encyclopedia explores a variety of issues that are central to the 21st century's American experience, such as feminism, LGBTQA groups, indigeneity, environmental justice, social movements, migration, and US-Mexico borderlands.

This guide was compiled "to help travelers find places associated with the lives and works of writers....Thousands of literary sites are identified and located in 1,586 hamlets, villages, towns, and cities." (Preface) Entries are arranged alphabetically by place within state and regional chapters. The volume is lavishly illustrated and includes an index to authors.

updated regularly with individually commissioned articles, and in addition includes articles from related stand-alone printed volumes, such as the Oxford Encyclopedias of American Literature, Literary Theory, Latina and Latino Literature, and others.

Include entries on theorists, individual writers, individual cities, countries, cities in relation to the arts, film and music, urban space, pre/early and modern cities, concepts and movements and definitions, among others.

A revised and updated version of the major reference work for poetry. Compiled by an entirely new team of editors, this first new edition in almost twenty years reflects recent changes in literary and cultural studies, providing up-to-date coverage and giving greater attention to the international aspects of poetry, all while preserving the best of the previous volumes. [publisher] 1993 edition available online in LION.