Research Guide: Literary Criticism

This guide will help you understand and locate literary criticism

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:

Finding Articles

Using the library's databases

Locate scholarly criticism and reviews of books, plays, short stories and poems through these Holman Library databases. Be sure to limit to Scholarly/academic articles when needed.

Want more?

Check for great scholarly articles in these open access databases on the free Web and in Google Scholar.

  • Tip: Remember - if you are asked to pay for the full text of an article, try borrowing it through InterLibrary Loan.

Searching for literary criticism in the databases

Using ProQuest to find literary criticism

Find criticism of a book, poem, play..etc. in the ProQuest database using the search suggestions written in the directions and shown in the images below:

  1. Using the advanced search option, you can type in the first box the title of a book, poem, play, etc. OR type in an author's name. 

(click on image to enlarge)

image of screenshot showing the advanced search boxes

  1. In the second box, add in the word criticism into the second box and using the drop down to the right of the box, limit to "Subject Headings." This will limit the results to articles that have "criticism" as a major subject of the article.

(click on image to enlarge)

 

  1. Once you see the results, you can click on the title to learn more, read the abstract, or get the full-text of the article.
  2. If you didn't limit to "full-text" articles, you may see results for articles from publications that GRC doesn't subscribe to. You can request these articles through InterLibrary Loan (ILL) using the link below. Or talk to a GRC librarian for help!

(click on image to enlarge)

Using Academic Search Complete

Find criticism of a book, poem, play..etc. in the EBSCO's Academic Search Complete database using the search suggestions written in the directions and shown in the images below:

  1. Using the advanced search option, you can type in the first box the title of a book, poem, play, etc. OR type in an author's name. 
  2. In the second box, add in the word criticism into the second box and using the drop down to the right of the box, limit to "Subject Headings." This will limit the results to articles that have "criticism" as a major subject of the article.

(click on image to enlarge)

image of the advanced search page of academic search, showing how to limit the results to literary criticism

  1. Once you see the results, you can click on the title to learn more, read the abstract, or get the full-text of the article.
  2. If you didn't limit to "full-text" articles, you may see results for articles from publications that GRC doesn't subscribe to. You can request these articles through InterLibrary Loan (ILL) using the link below. Or talk to a GRC librarian for help!

(click on image to enlarge)

image of the results page, showing how to access the article     

Literary Criticism 2: Step into the Scholarly Conversation

Source: "Literary Criticism 2: Step into the Scholarly Conversation" by Holman Library is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Part 2 of 2: Learn how to research what scholars are saying about your literary work and/or author.

An example of criticism

image of the cover of the publication "The Explicator"

Example:

Criticism of the poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" taken from The Explicator

"What Stevens seems to have done, then, within the space of the poem's fifty-four lines (which is divisible by 3 three times), is to present an exploration or, if you will, a "deconstruction" of the concepts of "thirteen" and "black," which until recently have had largely irrational negative connotations in traditional Western culture..."

Image and text source:Bogen, Nancy. "Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Explicator. 62.4 (2004): 217-221. Academic Search Complete. Web. 28 Nov. 2009. 

Video: How to Use Keywords to Form a Research Strategy

Source: "From topic to search results in two minutes! " by Holman Library is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Learn about strategizing keywords and how databases work when searching keywords.