 American literature resources
Major resources
- Jack Lynch's Literary Resources
- The American literature section of this page is useful as a starting point.
- The American Literature Archive
- An excellent and very comprehensive resource. The site is arranged under broad headings: Authors; Courses; Criticism; Gallery; Links; Periods; Works, with a wealth of resources under each heading.
- Project CROW (Course Resources On the Web)
- A directory of American literature Web resources, browsable by general resources (Basics), and sites featuring Syllabi/Assignments and Author Chronologies.
Also contains a collection of Annotated Links, a chronological list of American literature Internet Links, and Reviews of major sites.
- The American Studies Web
- Here are links to literary criticism and hypertext sites as well as lots of useful background resources on American studies.
- PAL: Perspectives in American literature
- A research and reference guide maintained by Professor Paul P. Reuben. This rich site deals with individual authors and movements and is divided into periods from Early American Literature to 1700 to Late 20th Century. A brilliant resource and kept up to date.
- Outline of American literature
- Short articles on key aspects of American literature and individual writers, from the Early American and Colonial Period to modern times.
Includes a useful Glossary.
Published by the United States Information Agency.
- Voice of the Shuttle
- A great source for sites on all aspects of American Literature from general to specific.
- Norton Anthology of American Literature
- A very handy Student website with several sections: Overview section includes a summary and key points; the Review section includes a Making Connections feature that offers ideas about how to explore connections among literary periods. The Period Introduction Quizzes focus on the material in the six period introductions in the Anthology. The Authors section focuses on some of the most widely taught authors in the anthology. This section includes questions for writing, research, and discussion; links to the American Passages image archive; and select biographies and bibliographies. The Topic Clusters build upon selected Contextual Clusters included in the anthology. Each includes questions for writing, research, and discussion as well as a link to the American Passages image archive. Timelines help you to place the literary works in historical context.
Our copy of The Norton Anthology of American Literature is at Call Number 810.8 N882.
Reference works
There are printed works in the Library's Reference collection that are essential tools for the study of American Literature.
For example, there are some very useful volumes in the Dictionary of Literary Biography [DLB] series (shelved in the Barr Smith Library's Reference collection at call number 920 D548). An example of what is available is the recently issued American short-story writers since World War II. Fifth series, edited by Richard E. Lee and Patrick Meanor. (Dictionary of literary biography volume 335). Barr Smith Reference collection (not for loan) Call Number: 920 D548 335.
All volumes in the DLB series are fully described, with a separate record for each title; use the Library Catalogue to find what is available.
Other reference works that I use regularly are:
- The Oxford companion to American literature
- 6th edition, edited by James D. Hart. N.Y., Oxford University Press, 1995.
Barr Smith Reference collection (not for loan) Call Number: 810.3 H32.6
- Reference guide to American literature
- 3rd edition, edited by Jim Kamp. Detroit, St. James Press, 1994.
Barr Smith Reference collection (not for loan) Call Number: 810.3 K59r.3
- The Oxford companion to women's writing in the United States
- Edited by Cathy N. Davidson and Linda Wagner-Martin. N.Y., Oxford University Press, 1994.
Barr Smith Reference collection (not for loan) Call Number: 810.9 D252o
- Dictionary of American literary characters
- Edited by Benjamin Franklin V. N.Y., Facts on File, 1990.
Barr Smith Reference collection (not for loan) Call Number: 813.09 D554
There are many more books in the Library on American Literature. Have a look at the titles listed under the Subject Heading American iterature and its subheadings in the Library Catalogue.
American poetry resources
- The American Verse Project
- A collaborative project between the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative (HTI) and the University of Michigan Press. The project is assembling a full-text, searchable electronic archive of volumes of American poetry prior to 1920.
- Modern American Poetry
- A multimedia companion to Anthology of Modern American Poetry, (Oxford University Press, 2000) edited by Cary Nelson. Click on POETS to call up links to a large (and growing) number of modern American poets. Background information, including biographical details and criticism, is given for each poet listed.
- Poets.org
- Website of the Academy of American Poets, which was founded in 1934 to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry. There is a search engine to find an individual poet or a poem, a listening booth and discussion forums.
American fiction resources
- Wright American Fiction, 1851-1875
- This site offers a very useful search engine for the 1851-1875 section of Lyle Wright's bibliography American fiction. We have the whole collection covering the periods 1774-1850;1851-1875; 1876-1900 and 1900-1905 on some 1,568 microfilm reels in the Barr Smith Library Microform collection at MICROFILM PER 33, but the only official index is the cumulative author index to 1774-1900.
This online index at the Indiana University Digital Program (thanks, colleagues!) is keyword searchable and browsable by author and significant words.
They offer online access to the actual texts, but my advice is to bypass these pretty large downloadable files in favour of our microfilm version.
If you are interested in the literature of the Beat Generation I have a separate page of resources on The Beat Generation and the Sixties.
This page is maintained by Jennifer Osborn
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