Online Reference Material
The following links will take you to excellent sources of background information on people, places, terms, and trends.
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Literature Online (LION)Contains biographical information on individual writers, as well as links to articles about them.
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Literature Resource Center (Gale Literary Databases)Excellent source of biographical information on individual writers, as well as summaries of the significant trends of what literary critics have written about them.
See below for a short video on how to use the Literature Resource Center. Note that you will need to authenticate in Zoom before you can view it - select the option to "Sign in with SSO," and then add "mit" to the domain box on the next screen.
- Literature Resource Center Tutorial (2:06 min)
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Scribner Writer SeriesLiterary criticism and overviews of writers from around the world. Antiquity to the present.
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Twayne’s AuthorsLiterary criticism and in-depth introductions to writers from around the world, from antiquity to the present. Also includes essays on specific works.
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Gale Virtual Reference LibraryOnline encyclopedias in many different subjects
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Britannica OnlineOnline version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Covers a wide variety of subjects.
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Oxford Reference OnlineOnline dictionaries and handbooks from many different fields, including literature.
Literature, Global Studies and Languages, and Theater Arts Librarian
Mark Szarko
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