Databases for Finding Literary Criticism
PERIODICAL INDEXES
Note: The Articles & Full Text feature on the main Library web page allows you to perform simple searches across multiple databases. Because the various databases are structured differently, search results may vary widely. For more precise searching, it's best to search the databases individually. See the recommended databases below. The list of databases below is only a selection. For more options, see the Databases subject listing.
Literature Databases
- MLA International BibliographyThe premier scholarly bibliography covering languages, literatures, folklore, film and linguistics from all over the world. Online coverage back to 1926. Includes books, articles in books, and journal articles. Does not index book reviews.
- ProQuest One LiteratureFormer name: Literature Online. Offers a full-text collection of poetry, drama, and prose with complementary references sources as well as articles, monographs and dissertations from the Annual bibliography of English language and literature (ABELL); full-text articles from literary journals; and biographical information on widely studied authors.
- 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. - Humanities International IndexIndexes articles and books across the arts and humanities disciplines from a multitude of U.S. and international publications. HII also provides citations for original creative works including poems, fiction, photographs, paintings and illustrations. Many links to full text.
- Performing Arts Periodicals DatabaseFormerly the International Index to the Performing Arts (IIPA) covers dance, film, television, drama, theater, stagecraft, musical theater, broadcast arts, circus performance, comedy, storytelling, opera, pantomime, puppetry, and magic. Full text from 1999 onward.
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In most cases (except for textbooks), the Cornell Library has online journals, newspapers, magazines, ebooks and print books, or can get them for you at no charge to you! Passkey can help you find it at Cornell, or Ask a Librarian.
Databases in Other Disciplines
- Black Studies CenterThis fully cross-searchable gateway to Black studies includes scholarly journal articles, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, and much more.
- Sociology Source UltimateProvides citations and direct links to the texts of journal articles, book chapters and conference proceedings, some as far back as 1880, encompassing sub-disciplines and related areas of the social sciences, including labor, crime, demography, economic sociology, immigration, ethnic, racial and gender studies, and more.”
- JSTORJSTOR is a fully-searchable database containing the back issues of several hundred scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, music, ecology and botany, business, and other fields.
- Project MUSESearchable database that provides access to the full text of journals and ebooks published by university presses in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics. Covers such fields as literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, and others.
- America: History & LifeComprises over 530,000 bibliographic entries for American history periodicals dating back to 1954. Covers the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.