Olin Reference Collection
Encyclopedias are great for:
- choosing a topic
- educating yourself quickly
- perspective on a topic
- variant spellings, terminology
- bibliography
Reference Sources for General Literature and Theory
Encyclopedias on Literature
- Gale LiteratureA literature database combining biographical, bibliographical, and contextual
information on authors and their works (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, and journalism). Includes both textual and visual material from the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Contemporary Authors, and Contemporary Literary Criticism.
Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural TheoryCall Number: Print copy: Olin Reference PN 81 E435 2011Publication Date: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011Covering literary theory from 1900 to the present, as well as cultural theory, this encyclopedia provides accessible entries on the important concepts, theorists and trends.
Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and CriticismCall Number: Print copy: Olin Reference PN81 J554 2005+Publication Date: 2004Contains signed, in-depth overviews of the major schools of literary theory Useful for understanding literary concepts, e.g., Postcolonial Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, Race and Ethnicity, etc.
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and PoeticsCall Number: Olin Reference PN1021 N39 2012+ (also Olin 501)Publication Date: 4th ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012A 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 also available online.
- Oxford Bibliographies: Literary and Critical TheoryOffers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on literary and critical theory. Bibliographies are browsable by subject and keyword searchable.
A Poet's Glossary by Call Number: Olin Reference PN1021 H57 2014Publication Date: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014Alphabetically arranged dictionary "of forms, devices, groups, movements, isms, aesthetics, rhetorical terms, and folklore" related to poetry. International scope.
The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English DictionaryThe OED presents in alphabetical series the words that have formed the English vocabulary from the time of the earliest records down to the present day, with all the relevant facts concerning their form, sense-history, pronunciation, and etymology.
Reference Sources for Literature
Cambridge Companion to Travel WritingPublication Date: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002Covers travel writing in English between 1500 and the present. Essays survey the period's travel writing; geography (Arabia, the Amazon, Ireland, Calcutta, the Congo and California), and analyze the theoretical and cultural dimensions of the genre.Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature
Call Number: Print: Olin Reference PS21 E537 2004 +Publication Date: Oxford UP, 20044 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.
Oxford Encyclopedia of British LiteratureCall Number: Print copy: Olin Reference PR19 O95 2006Publication Date: Oxford UP, 2006"Covers the entire history of British literature from the seventh century to the present, focusing on the writers and the major texts of what are now the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. In five hundred substantial essays written by major scholars, the Encyclopedia includes biographies of nearly four hundred individual authors and a hundred topical essays with detailed analyses of particular themes, movements, genres, and institutions whose impact upon the writing or the reading of literature was significant." Table of contents.
- Oxford Bibliographies Online: British and Irish LiteratureOffers peer-reviewed, annotated bibliographies on British and Irish literature. Bibliographies are browseable by subject area and keyword searchable.