Literature Criticism

For basic information on Baldwin Library policies and procedures, see the brochure “Introduction to Baldwin Library.” Or call the library main desk at 1-229-391-4990. Or e-mail us at asklib@abac.edu.

Looking for information about a particular author, short story, poem or novel? Need to compare a character in one reading with a character in another? Are you trying to answer burning literary questions such as Did Shakespeare really write all the plays attributed to him? Was Huck Finn black? or Why did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle kill off Sherlock Holmes at the height of his popularity? The body of research and writing that thoughtfully evaluates and analyzes all aspects of literature is often called literary criticism. This handout is meant to serve as an introduction to some of the basic resources available to you through Baldwin Library.

Call numbers beginning with	Have this as their primary subject
PN	Literature in general
PQ	French, Italian, Spanish literature
PR	English (from England) literature
PS	American literature

It may be worth your time to browse the appropriate sections in the Reference Collection as well as the Main Collection upstairs. Many students forget to check the nationality of their authors when beginning their research and often miss some useful resources. Remember, Margaret Atwood, Chinua Achebe, Nadine Gordimer and Isabel Allende (as well as many others) are NOT American. You will not find information on these people in resources dedicated to American literature.

Reference Works on Literature at Baldwin – only a selected few listed here! All of these are in the Reference Collection

Contemporary Literary Criticism REF PN 94 .C65
Twentieth Century Literary Criticism REF PN 94 .T85
Ninetieth Century Literary Criticism REF PN 761 .N5
Poetry Criticism REF PN 1010 .P499
Short Story Criticism REF PN 3373 .S386
Drama Criticism REF PR 623 .C75

These are all multi-volume sets and many of them have small paperbound books at the end of the set – these are the indexes for the set. Use the indexes to find all mentions of your author or work within the entire set of reference books.

When using GIL (our on-line catalog - https://gil.abac.edu/) to look for information on an author, use the author as a SUBJECT rather than searching everything or looking for the author’s name in a title.

Don’t ignore the e-books!!! GIL gives you access to a number of digital books through NetLibrary. You will find these e- books by searching GIL for your author. Some of the most useful series have titles such as Bloom’s Major Short Story Writers or Bloom’s Major Novelists. To read these books off campus, you must set up a NetLibrary account while you are on campus.

GILExpress will let you request books that ABAC does not own from other University System of Georgia libraries. Interested? Ask one of the library staff for help.

GALILEO, Georgia’s Virtual Library, gives ABAC students access to many different research databases from every discipline. Often, the most difficult problem is choosing the best resources for your research interest. We often suggest these for literature scholars. Find them by clicking on the Arts and Humanities tab

and then choosing Literature, Language & Criticism. If you find an article citation and no full text, you may request the article from one of the librarians using a process called Interlibrary Loan.