Recommended Databases for Literary Research
- Dictionary of Literary BiographySigned essays written by scholars provide essential context for understanding the careers and writings of more than 12,000 authors from all time periods and from all parts of the world.
Literary Research Tips
MLA International Bibliography is the primary database for finding scholarly articles in literature. You can search for an author, a work, a keyword, etc. The citations link to full-text in many but not ALL cases because the database contains citations for articles (often readily available electronically) but also books (not so available electronically) and dissertations (electronically available but not through this database).
SUR (Revista) is a well-known literary journal. This database has the full-text of that journal. Searching in the full-text field will likely yield the best results.
JSTOR is contains the full-text of 264 language and literature journals and 53 Latin American Studies journals. You can search it as a separate database but often MLA Bibliography and Literature Online will link to JSTOR journals. Important to remember is that JSTOR is an archive, i.e. it does not have the current 5 years of most journals.
Literature Online (LION) Searches MLA Bibliography as well as the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL). LION also contains reference material. For example, if you need biographical or background information on an author, you can use this for an authoritative source (rather than Wikipedia!)
