Featured Dictionaries
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The Book of Literary Terms by The much-anticipated second edition of The Book of Literary Terms features new examples and terms to enhance Turco's classic guide that students and scholars have relied on over the years as a definitive resource for the definitions of the major terms, forms, and styles of literature. Chapters covering fiction, drama, nonfiction, and literary criticism and scholarship offer readers a comprehensive guide to all forms of prose and their many sub-genres. From "Utopian novel," "videotape," and "yellow journalism" to "kabuki play," "Personalism," and "Poststructuralism," this book is a valuable reference offering an extensive world of knowledge. Every teacher, student, critic, and general lover of literature should be sure to add The Book of Literary Terms to their library.
ISBN: 9780826361936Publication Date: 2020-09-01 -
A Dictionary of Literary Symbols by This is the first dictionary of symbols to be based on literature, rather than 'universal' psychological archetypes or myths. It explains and illustrates the literary symbols that we all frequently encounter (such as swan, rose, moon, gold), and gives hundreds of cross-references and quotations. The dictionary concentrates on English literature, but its entries range widely from the Bible and classical authors to the twentieth century, taking in American and European literatures. For this new edition, Michael Ferber has included over twenty completely new entries (including bear, holly, sunflower and tower), and has added to many of the existing entries. Enlarged and enriched from the first edition, its informed style and rich references make this book an essential tool not only for literary and classical scholars, but for all students of literature.
ISBN: 0521870429Publication Date: 2007-06-21
Dictionaries
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Oxford English Dictionary OnlineTraces the evolution of the English language over the last millennium and includes definitions, history, and pronunciation of over half a million English words, present and past.
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Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new windowFeatures a literary glossary for looking up literature terms. Can search the American Heritage(R) Dictionary, 4th Edition. Literary Reference Center also features excellent author biographies and Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature.
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Middle English CompendiumThe Middle English Compendium offers easy access to and interconnectivity between three major Middle English electronic resources: an electronic version of the Middle English Dictionary, a Hyper Bibliography of Middle English prose and verse, based on the MED bibliographies, and a Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, as well as links to an associated network of electronic resources.
Encyclopedias
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Literature Resource CenterMerriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature provides up-to-date entries for literary terms and vocabulary as well as information about authors and works. You must have a San Jose Public Library card number to access this resource.
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The Hutchinson Encyclopedia of Literature (2006)Available as an e-book to SJSU students and faculty.
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The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature by This set treats the whole of American literature, from the European discovery of America to the present, with entries in alphabetical order. Each of the 350 substantive essays is a major interpretive contribution. Well-known critics and scholars provide clear and vividly written essays that reflect the latest scholarship on a given topic, as well as original thinking on the part of the critic. The Encyclopedia is available in print and as an e-reference text from Oxford's Digital Reference Shelf. At the core of the encyclopedia lie 250 essays on poets, playwrights, essayists, and novelists. The most prominent figures (such as Whitman, Melville, Faulkner, Frost, Morrison, and so forth) are treated at considerable length (10,000 words) by top-flight critics. Less well known figures are discussed in essays ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 words. Each essay examines the life of the author in the context of his or her times, looking in detail at key works and describing the arc of the writer's career. These essays include an assessment of the writer's current reputation with a bibliography of major works by the writer as well as a list of major critical and biographical works about the writer under discussion. A second key element of the project is the critical assessments of major American masterworks, such as Moby-Dick, Song of Myself, Walden, The Great Gatsby, The Waste Land, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Death of a Salesmanr, or Beloved. Each of these essays offers a close reading of the given work, placing that work in its historical context and offering a range of possibilities with regard to critical approach. These fifty essays (ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 words) are simply and clearly enough written that an intelligent high school student should easily understand them, but sophisticated enough that a college student or general reader in a public library will find the essays both informative and stimulating. The final major element of this encyclopedia consists of fifty-odd essays on literary movements, periods, or themes, pulling together a broad range of information and making interesting connections. These essays treat many of the same authors already discussed, but in a different context; they also gather into the fold authors who do not have an entire essay on their work (so that Zane Grey, for example, is discussed in an essay on Western literature but does not have an essay to himself). In this way, the project is truly "encyclopedic," in the conventional sense. These essays aim for comprehensiveness without losing anything of the narrative force that makes them good reading in their own right. In a very real fashion, the literature of the American people reflects their deepest desires, aspirations, fears, and fantasies. The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature gathers a wide range of information that illumines the field itself and clarifies many of its particulars.
ISBN: 0195156536Publication Date: 2004-01-29 -
The concise Oxford companion to American literature by For nearly half a century, James D. Hart's 'Oxford Companion to American Literature' has offered a matchless guided tour through American literary culture, both past and present, with brief biographies of important authors, descriptions of important literary movements, and a wealth of information on other aspects of American literary life and history from the Colonial period to the present day. In this second edition of the concise version, Wendy Martin and Danielle Hinrichs bring the work up to date to more fully reflect the diversity of the subject. Their priorities have been, foremost, to fully represent the impact of writers of color and women writers on the field of American literature and to increase the usefulness of the work to students of literary theory. To this end, over 230 new entries have been added.
ISBN: 0191872113Publication Date: 2021 -
The concise Oxford companion to English literature by 3rd edition. his book provides a compact guide to all aspects of English literature. For this edition, existing entries have been updated and new entries have been added on contemporary writers such as Jim Crace and Pat Barker.
ISBN: 9780191036743Publication Date: 2012