Subject Librarian
How To Get Started
Most literary criticism focuses on analyzing a text based on symbolism, writing style, historical context, and theme. For the works in LIT203, you may want to concentrate more on historical context, or the social, religious, economic and political conditions that existed when a work was written. More resources for historical and religious context are in the Find More Information box below.
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Find Literary Criticism
- Students Literature Collection This link opens in a new windowAn excellent starting point for literary research. Find plot summaries, discussions of themes, characters and setting, and some scholarly criticism.
- Bloom's Literature This link opens in a new windowBloom’s Literature contains a wide range of reference essays and scholarly criticism examining great authors and their works; full-length videos of classic plays and films; eBook collection of literary classics and poems.
- Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new windowContains author biographies, book reviews and scholarly critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline.
- Literary Reference Source This link opens in a new windowContains works of literary criticism, including scholarly journals, work analyses, book reviews, author interviews, and more.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowJSTOR provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines. Good database for scholarly articles.
Search Tip: Remember to use quotation marks around titles and phrases; e.g., "holy scriptures." If you don't find what you need, modify your search or try another source.
Find More Information
Academic Search Premier and ProQuest Central are general databases so you should be more specific with your keywords. Use quotation marks to search for phrases: e.g. "Genesis and creation" or "Ramayana and analysis". You can also limit your search to Scholarly Journals to find articles that are more in-depth.
- Academic Search Premier (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowGeneral database good for all subject areas. Contains newspaper, magazine and scholarly journal articles.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new windowThe largest single periodical resource available, bringing together complete databases across all major subject areas, including Business, Health and Medical, Social Sciences, Education, Science and Technology, and Humanities.
- Google ScholarSearch scholarly articles through Google. Be aware that the full text may not always be available
- Ancient and Medieval History Online This link opens in a new windowArticles and overviews on six ancient civilizations: Africa, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mesoamerica, and Mesopotamia. Includes maps and timelines.
- World Religions Online This link opens in a new windowFocuses on 15 of the world’s religions and traditional spiritual practices, including information on important topics, spiritual leaders, sacred texts, and holy days and festivals.
- Biography In Context This link opens in a new windowSearch for biographies based on name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, birth/death dates and places, gender, or other keywords.
Search the Library for Books
Once you click search, a new tab will open. Look at the menu options on the left of your screen. Filter your search results to “Bergen Community College.” You can also filter by Format to just "eBooks".
Search Tip: Spelling counts! If you do not get results, check your spelling.