The term "critical reception," or "reception history," refers to:

• How a creative work (book, film, music, etc.) has been "received" -- that is, how audiences have reacted to it over time.
• How a historical figure or event has been viewed over time.

This kind of research is done on:

• Literary figures, artists
• Historical figures and events

It's done in order to:

• Trace various views of, and critical approaches to, the person or event over time
• When editing an early document: need to research critical views of it
• Graduate programs often specialize in a specific critical approach

CURRENT SCHOLARLY REVIEWS:

• Places the work (book, film, dance performance) into a context
• How  it fits with previous scholarship  
• How it is different, what does it contribute  
• What it is lacking, gets wrong

Review essays:

• Articles that review multiple works  
• Give an overview of recent scholarship on a topic

 

HISTORICAL / EARLY REVIEWS:

• May or may not be scholarly
• Can help trace how an idea/book/film was understood or received over time: something that today is considered an important work might not have been when it first appeared. Can also help a researcher trace the arc of an artist's or scholar's work, compare early works with later ones
• Or the opposite, can help you understand the critics who examined the work

 

COMPILATIONS OF CURRENT AND HISTORICAL REVIEWS / CRITICISM:

• Gale Literature (available on our Databases page) includes excerpts or entire early reviews

• The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism

• Encyclopedias devoted to individual critical approaches, e.g. Encyclopedia of Feminist Criticism, Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Thought, etc

• Bibliographies on an individual person or critical biographies (part biography, part critical study)

 

FINDING REVIEWS:

• Search library catalogs for collections of reviews (an example: The Romantics Reviewed: Contemporary Reviews of British Romantic Writers). Add to your search terms "Reviews" or  "Book reviews."
• Use search terms to convey a critical approach, e.g. Whitman AND masculinities
• Bibliographies may include reviews. Add to your search terms "Bibliography."
• Some library catalogs link to reviews, or allow you to limit your search to reviews.

Databases and reviews:

• JSTOR (journals included are retrospective to first volumes published)
• ProQuest Historical Newspapers
• Many databases let you limit your search to reviews
• Web of Science to track responses to seminal articles, books via "Cited Reference" searching
• Subject-specific databases for art, music, dance, theater include reviews of performances, exhibitions

Citation indexes:

• Web of Science (database) to track repsonses to seminal articles, books

 

CRITICAL APPROACHES:

The following may make useful search terms:

• Archetypal
• Postcolonial
• Postmodernism
• Multiculturalism
• Deconstructivist
• Feminist
• Marxist
• Socialist
• Gender and masculinities
• New criticism (work viewed in isolation)
• New historicism (work viewed within historical context)
• Ecocriticism
• Structuralism
• Psychoanalytic
• Reader response (Derrida, Levi-Strauss, Heidigger, Freud, Bakhtin)
• Allegorical
• Literal
• Historical
• Textual
• Form
• Tradition
• Oral
• Sociological
• Source
• Redaction
• Genre
• Rhetorical
• Narrative
• Canonical
• Myth
• Practical

 

Mindmap: Reference Resources

Mindmap: Sources of a creative work

Mindmap: Useful Keywords for searching library catalogs

Mindmap: Humanities Literature: How it's Published

 

Databases:

• JSTOR
• ProQuest Historical Newspapers
• Times of London (on both our "Find a Journal" and "Find a Database" pages)
• America: History and Life
• Historical Abstracts
• Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL)
• Web of Science (citation indexing)

 

Literary criticism:

Gale Literature (available on our Databases page) includes the following subsets:

• Contemporary Literary Criticism (CLC)
• Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism (TCLC)
• Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism
• Literature Criticism 1400-1800
• Hispanic Literature Criticism
• Classical and medieval literature criticism (CMLC)
• Short Story Criticism
• Poetry Criticism
• Drama Criticism

The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism

Music:

• ZSR research guide: Historical Research in Music 
• Lexicon of Musical Invective: critical assaults on composers since Beethoven's time

Much critical literature focuses on a single work (for example, a book review) or on the works of a specific person (for example, their early or late works, or a theme in their works). You'll want to narrow your search accordingly.

Compilations of critical literature tend to be organized around a particular critical approach (feminist, etc.), genre (plays, etc.) or subject area, often limited to a geographical region or time period (twentieth-century English literature). Use keywords of this type in your search.