Research Guides: ENG 150: Fantasies of Once and of Future (Spring 2024): Doing Literary Research

Primary Sources

Medieval Family Life This link opens in a new window
Images of original medieval manuscripts from five family letter collections. Includes full text searchable transcripts from the printed editions, where available, plus supplementary material. Coverage: Middle ages
Medieval Travel Writing This link opens in a new window
Multiple manuscript sources in various languages detailing the journeys of famous travellers from Marco Polo to John Capgrave, and the stories of legendary figures such as Prester John and Sir John Mandeville, with translations, route maps and introductory essays.

Use Primo - the library's search interface - to locate books and other materials all in a single search. Here are a few tips to get you started:

To find items on a theme or issue in an author's work, enter the name of the author/work and a term that best conveys the issue you are researching, e.g. Macbeth and feminis* (the asterisk is a truncation symbol that allows for word variants, such as feminist or feminism). Keep in mind that not every work of literature will have a lot of research on it - you may need to back up from your initial search to something more broad.
To find works about a literary author or other figure, enter the person's name in quotes, i.e. "Jane Austen" - adding in other terms will help narrow down your results - i.e. "Jane Austen" marriage or "Maya Angelou" "civil rights"
To find works around a particular genre, us that genre in your search i.e. poetry abolition or "short story" war

ZSR subscribes to the following items that can help you as you write papers for English classes.

MLA Handbook Plus This link opens in a new window
The go-to resource for writers of research papers and anyone citing sources. MLA Handbook Plus includes the full text of the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook as well as the first editions of both the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy and the MLA Guide to Undergraduate Research in Literature.
Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
The definitive dictionary of the English Language. Provides timelines of when words entered the language, sources for words, and audio pronunciation guides. Coverage: 1989 Edition, with updates

Gale Literature This link opens in a new window
Search across literary biography, literary criticism, genre studies, reviews, and primary sources across thousands of Gale publications. Good starting point for doing any kind of research in English literature. Coverage: varies
Literary Reference Center Plus This link opens in a new window
Contains author biographies, literary criticism, journal articles and book reviews. Coverage: Details not available

ZSR Online Encyclopedias about the Medieval World
This is a list of our online ebooks that are encyclopedias of some aspect of the medieval world.

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Search across hundreds of subject encyclopedias and other referece works. A great place to find background information on almost any research topic. Includes subject trees, pro/con resources, links to scholarly articles and more.
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Search across hundreds of subject encyclopedias and other reference works. A great place to find background information on almost any research topic. Includes a topic finder for help with narrowing or broadening your research topic. Coverage: varies
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Covers art and culture from prehistory to the 1990s. Its multicultural approach offers detailed analyses of civilizations from Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and the Pacific. Provides a guide to the visual arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, drawing, and printmaking, as well as the decorative arts. Coverage: Details not available

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Contains articles, books, chapters of books, conference proceedings, dissertations, and working papers on topics relating to literature, modern languages, folklore, and linguistics. Coverage: 1926-
Humanities International Index This link opens in a new window
Contains scholarly journals and other periodicals and magazines covering the humanities including art, classics, history, literature, philosophy and more. Coverage: 1975-
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A full-text database of archived issues of academic journals. Since JSTOR is a backfiles project, a typical coverage range is the beginning of a journal until three or five years ago. Supported in part by the Dail Endowment Fund. Coverage: Varies
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Provides access to the full text of scholarly journals and books in the arts and humanities and social sciences. Coverage: Varies
ProQuest One Literature This link opens in a new window
Provides content and tools to support the study of literature from a variety of sources including primary texts, criticism, full-text journals, book reviews, dissertations, eBooks, reference material, audio, and video. Coverage: varies

Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index This link opens in a new window
Covers journal articles, book reviews, and essays in books about women, sexuality, and gender during the Middle Ages. Coverage is from 450 C.E. to 1500 C.E. and the geographic area is Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Coverage: 1994-
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and abstracts for journal articles, books, and dissertations covering the history of the world from 1450-- except the U.S. and Canada. For similar coverage of the U.S. and Canada, use America History and Life. Access is limited to six simultaneous users. Coverage: 1954-
International Medieval Bibliography This link opens in a new window
A bibliography of modern scholarship concerning the European Middle Ages (c. 450-1500). Coverage: 1967-