Drama

A guide to general and critical resources in theatre and film.

Scholarly Criticism

Search tips

For sustained and deeper literary criticism, find relevant scholarly articles and scholarly books) in library databases. Remember.

  • Limit your search to scholarly (peer-reviewed) journal articles. (In JSTOR limit to Articles.)
  • To find relevant and useful articles, you will need to consider many more. Try different keywords, subject terms, and databases.
  • Synthesize ideas. In other words, you may not find many scholarly articles on your specific text. Criticism on that author's other works, on the author, or on works by other authors addressing similar themes may be relevant to your discussion.

(click on image to enlarge)

screenshot of a search showing how to limit to full text and search multiple terms.

Different kinds of Scholarly Criticism

Scholarly Criticism differs in focus and breadth. Compare the following two articles. 

"Popular" vs Scholarly Articles

Compare the two following articles on the play Angels in America.

Popular Scholarly
 

Literary Criticism Journal: The Explicator

Excerpt from "The Taming of Romeo in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet": 

Throughout the balcony scene, Juliet endeavors to train and discipline Romeo and turn him into a “manned” falcon the way Petruchio, the falconer in The Taming of the Shrew, trains and disciplines Katherine, his figurative bird. As the relationship between the falcon and her trainer is based on the domination and the subjugation of the falcon’s powers to the trainer’s will, Juliet shows strong tendency for power as she continually speaks of herself as a “falconer” and of Romeo as her “bird”:

JULIET. [to Romeo after midnight] . . . I would have thee gone, And yet no farther than a wanton’s bird, That lets it hop a little from her hand, Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, And with a silk thread plucks it back again, So loving jealous of his liberty. (2.2.176–81)

from: Wisam Mansour. "The Taming of Romeo in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.", The Explicator, 2008, 66:4, 206-208.

Beyond Our Collection: Interlibrary Loan

Using the Interlibrary Loan Service

InterLibrary Loan: No library has it all! But the InterLibrary Loan (or ILL) is a service offered by Holman Library for borrowing books and articles from other libraries. InterLibrary Loan requests are free to current GRC students, faculty and staff.

For your research, it is important to search many places.
  • First, start with the books and articles available through the Holman Library.

  • Then, If you find books and articles that the Library does NOT have access to, just request them through Interlibrary Loan.

  • Using Interlibrary Loan increases the amount of resources available to you and helps you become a more thorough researcher.

Note:
  • Books and other items that require mailing may take 1-2 weeks.

  • Articles and other digital items may arrive within 2-5 days. Use your email as your contact info and the article will be sent directly to you.

If you need help filling out this form, call the library reference desk at (253) 931-6480.

Other places you can search...

Use the links below to look for books, articles and more beyond our collection: