This library research guide is for Professor Siler's LIT 1000 classes. It covers where to find and how to cite articles for your literature assignments. Plus it includes recommended books, ebooks, and full plays to help bring the literature to life. For assignment instructions and due dates, please refer to the specific assignment(s) in Canvas.
The databases below can help you critique poems, short stories, and plays. They may include plot summaries, synopses and work overviews, articles of literary criticism, author biographies, full text of literary journals, book reviews, classic & contemporary poems, classic & contemporary short stories, full text of classic novels, author interviews, and images of key literary figures.
Select the "i" to learn more about a particular database.
Recommended for biographical information:
You will notice many of our databases say Gale or Ebsco at the end of their names. Most of those databases have similar search features and tool boxes.
In your ENC1101 classes you learned how to search in Academic OneFile (Gale) and Academic Search Complete (EBSCO). For a quick refresher on searching in Gale, select the link below.
For tips & tricks on using the Gale databases Click Here!
You will notice many of our databases say Gale or Ebsco at the end of their names. Most of those databases have similar search features and tool boxes.
In your ENC1101 classes you learned how to search in Academic OneFile (Gale) and Academic Search Complete (EBSCO). For a quick refresher on searching in EBSCO, select the link below.
For tips & tricks on using the EBSCO databases Click Here!
This 7 minute video tutorial will walk you through formatting a Works Cited page that already includes database generated citations.
Note: Adding a running head is not covered in this tutorial. It was omitted to save time as this video was created to be one in a series made by various librarians. The running head on a works cited page, in MLA's 8th or 9th editions, should consist of your last name and page number, aligned to the right corner in the header.
TLCC Writing Tutors (online &/or on campus): Must "enroll" for online access via Canvas (don't worry - this is NOT a graded class): https://canvas.polk.edu/enroll/ENYJRB
Writing Studio: Assistance from Polk State writing professors & access to turnitin: https://www.polk.edu/teaching-learning-computing-center-tlcc/tutoring/the-writing-studio/
Just want a quick refresher in writing?
Try the Writer's Reference Center database: https://libguides.polk.edu/writers-reference-center
Bloom's How to Write about Robert Frost
Known for his poetic transformation of New England and nature, Robert Frost has retained his position through the years as one of the essential American poets of the 20th century. His classic works, including ""The Road Not Taken,"" ""Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,"" and ""The Death of the Hired Man,"" are explored in this volume and will lead students and readers to a more nuanced understanding of the work of this verse master. Suggestions for writing an effective paper about Frost will encourage students' critical-thinking skills.
How Robert Frost Made Realism Matter
Robert Frost stood at the intersection of nineteenth-century romanticism and twentieth-century modernism and made both his own. Frost adapted the genteel values and techniques of nineteenth-century poetry, but Barron argues that it was his commitment to realism that gave him popular as well as scholarly appeal and created his enduring legacy. This highly researched consideration of Frost investigates early innovative poetry that was published in popular magazines from 1894 to 1915 and reveals a voice of dissent that anticipated "The New Poetry" - a voice that would come to dominate American poetry as few others have.
Roads Not Taken
In Roads Not Taken, Earl J. Wilcox and Jonathan N. Barron bring a new freshness and depth to the study of one of America's greatest poets. While some critics discounted Frost as a poet without technical skill, rhetorical complexity, or intellectual depth, over the past decade scholars have begun to view Robert Frost's work from many new perspectives. Critical hermeneutics, culture studies, feminism, postmodernism, and textual editing all have had their impact on readings of the poet's life and work. This collection of essays is the first to account for the variety of these new perceptions. Appealing to a wide literary community, and in keeping with Frost's own poetic goals, these twelve essays fall into four distinct categories: gender, biography and cultural studies, the intertext, and poetics and theory. All the contributors, many of whom have written books on Frost, are widely recognized scholars. Their diverse viewpoints and collective expertise make this volume of essays the most significant contribution to Frost criticism to be published in over twenty years.
Bloom's How to Write about Langston Hughes
A poet, playwright, novelist, and public figure, Langston Hughes is regarded as a cultural hero, making his mark during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s. A prolific author, Hughes focused his writing on discrimination in and disillusionment with American society. His most noted works of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction are broached in this new volume, revealing the range and enduring vision of this multitalented writer. Students looking for guidance for essays about Hughes will appreciate this writing resource.
Langston Hughes by
Edited and with an introduction by R. Baxter Miller, Professor of English and the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Georgia, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the poet laureate of Harlem. For readers who are encountering Hughes for the first time, a biographical sketch then relates the details of his life and four essays survey the critical reception of Hughes work, explore its cultural and historical contexts, situate Hughes among his contemporaries, and review key themes in his work. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the writer can then move on to other essays that explore topics like Hughes relations to the Harlem Renaissance and black aesthetics, blues music, religion, and modernism. Still other essays consider Hughes portrayals of women and families, his politics, and his depictions of racial violence. Works covered include Hughes most commonly studied poems, like Theme for English B and Montage of a Dream Deferred; the Semple stories; classic short stories like The Blues I m Playing and Blessed Assurance; Hughes two autobiographies; and a sampling of his plays."
A Historical Guide to Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes has been an inspiration to generations of readers and writers seeking a passionate, intelligent, and socially responsible art. In this volume, Steven C. Tracy has gathered a broad range of critics to produce an interdisciplinary approach to the important historical and cultural elements reflected in Hughes's work. Their essays, all previously unpublished, place Hughes in the context of Harlem, his preferred geographical and spiritual home base, as well as the larger; political, social, musical, and artistic milieu of his rapidly changing times. They examine Hughes's negotiation of his own moral and ethical ground in a complex, sometimes hostile world, and demonstrate the remarkable triumph of a sensitive, creative human being who refused to be overwhelmed by the; forces of discrimination, pessimism, and bitterness that claimed so many writers of his generation. This volume, with its historical essays, brief biography, and illustrated chronology, provides a concise yet authoritative portrait of one of America's and the world's most beloved writers.
The Cambridge introduction to twentieth-century American poetryLooking for a poem?
One place to find many poems is in the Columbia Granger's World of Poetry Database. Do a "Quick Search" by Poet (bottom left corner) - select the correct poet - select a poem from the A-Z list. Note: Full text is NOT always included.
The Poetry of Robert Frost by
This is the only comprehensive volume of Robert Frost's published verse; in it are the contents of all eleven of his individual books of poetry-from A Boy's Will (1913) to In the Clearing (1962). The editor, Edward Connery Lathem, has scrupulously annotated the more than 350 poems in this book.
Robert Frost : studies of the poetry
The Cambridge Companion to Robert Frost
This collection of specially commissioned essays by experts in the field explores key dimensions of Robert Frost's poetry and life. Frost remains one of the most memorable and beguiling of modern poets. The essays in this volume enable readers to explore Frost's art and thought, from the controversies of his biography to his subtle reinvention of poetic and metric traditions. This volume will bring fresh perspectives to the poetry of an American master, and its chronology and guide to further reading will prove valuable to scholars and students alike.
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by
A complete anthology of the poetry of Langston Hughes presents 860 poems that capture the rhythms, emotions, cultural significance, and political awareness of African-American life, from his earliest works to his final collection.
Race in the Poetry of Langston Hughes
This informative edition explores the poetry of Langston Hughes through the lens of race. Coverage includes an examination of Hughes's life and influences; a look at key ideas related to race in Hughes's poetry, including the influence of African-American music, the use of poetry to address racial problems, and the politics of Hughes's anti-lynching poems; and contemporary perspectives on race, such as the decline of civil rights reform and the role of hip-hop in shaping black music.
Life of Pi by
1 User - The international bestseller and modern classic of adventure, survival, and the power of storytelling is now an award-winning play. After the sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan--and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi Patel, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with the tiger, Richard Parker, for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true? Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.
Life of Pi by
The international bestseller and modern classic of adventure, survival, and the power of storytelling is now an award-winning play. After the sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan--and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi Patel, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with the tiger, Richard Parker, for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true? Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.
Anna in the Tropics by
Winner of the 2003 Pulitizer Prize for Drama . . . there are many kinds of light. The light of fires. The light of stars. The light that reflects off rivers. Light that penetrates through cracks. Then there's the type of light that reflects off the skin. --Nilo Cruz, Anna in the Tropics This lush romantic drama depicts a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of America in the midst of the Depression. Set in Ybor City (Tampa) in 1930, Cruz imagines the catalytic effect the arrival of a new "lector" (who reads Tolstoy's Anna Karenina to the workers as they toil in the cigar factory) has on a Cuban-American family. Cruz celebrates the search for identity in a new land.
Anna in the Tropics by
THE STORY: ANNA IN THE TROPICS is a poignant and poetic new play set in Florida in 1929 in a Cuban-American cigar factory, where cigars are still rolled by hand and lectors are employed to educate and entertain the workers.
Streaming Videos of and/or related to Othello in our library catalog: https://bit.ly/Othello_AV
Selected plays below:
Selected videos about Othello (commentary, analysis, etc...) below:
Spark Notes - side by side no fear translation:
Othello by
Unlimited User ebook- Shakespeare's renowned tragedy about the destruction wrought by ambition and jealousy. Othello, a Moor and general in the Venetian army, has just eloped with Desdemona, the daughter of a senator. Simultaneously, seeds of doubt are planted in Othello's mind by the scheming Iago--an ensign who seethes with ambition and resentment--with assistance from Iago's wealthy friend who wanted Desdemona for himself. Behind the scenes, Iago's machinations are designed to sow discord and, ultimately, convince Othello that his wife is unfaithful--and the consequences will be tragic.
Othello: a Critical Reader by
Othello has long been, and remains, one of Shakespeare's most popular works. It is a favourite work of scholars, students, and general readers alike. Perhaps more than any other of Shakespeare's tragedies, this one seems to speak most clearly to contemporary readers and audiences, partly because it deals with such pressing modern issues as race, gender, multiculturalism, and the ways love, jealousy, and misunderstanding can affect relations between romantic partners. The play also features Iago, one of Shakespeare's most mesmerizing and puzzling villains. This guide offers students and scholars an introduction to the play's critical and performance history, including notable stage productions and film versions. It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current research on the play and four new critical essays. Finally, a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated bibliography provide a basis for further research.
"Othello" and Interpretive Traditions by
During the past twenty years or so, "Othello" has become the Shakespearean tragedy that speaks most powerfully to our contemporary concerns. Focusing on race and gender (and on class, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality), the play talks about what audiences want to talk about. Yet at the same time, as refracted through Iago, it forces us to hear what we do not want to hear; like the characters in the play, we become trapped in our own prejudicial malice and guilt.
Othello - Character Studies by
Othello is a major shakespearean text, studiedwidely and often adapted for film and TV and isespecially challenging for a multicultural society.Othello lends itself to criticism through discussion ofthe major characters although this study also focuseson recent criticism's analysis of the characters as"signifiers". The study of the key characters takesthe discussion of the text immediately into thecentral issues of "otherness", gender, race andpower.
Othello by
One of the greatest of Shakespeare's tragedies, Othello tells the story of a Moorish general in command of the armed forces of Venice who earns the enmity of his ensign Iago by passing him over for a promotion. Partly for revenge and partly out of pure evil, Iago plots to convince Othello that Desdemona, his wife, has been unfaithful to him. Iago succeeds in his evil aims only too well, for the enraged Othello murders Desdemona. When Othello later learns of her innocence, he takes his own life. Bleak and unsparing, this play offers a stunning portrait of an arch-villain and an astute psychological study of the nature of evil.
Shakespeare's Othello by
The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background. The latest generation of titles in the series also feature glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format. Betrayal and manipulation lie at the heart ofOthello. Keep up with all the crosses and double-crosses of this tragic play with theCliffsNotes version of the play, which will help you form your own opinions about Iago's schemes, Othello's motives, and Desdemona's loyalty. Other features that help you study include Background information about the life and times of William Shakespeare to help you understand his influences A character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters Glossaries to help you comprehend Shakespeare's language Critical essays on the character pairs and major themes of the play A review section that tests your knowledge Classic literature or modern modern-day treasure -- you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.
Race in William Shakespeare's Othello by
When decorated Moorish general Othello appoints Cassio as his chief lieutenant, Iago gets jealous and plots revenge, alleging that Othello's wife, a much younger white woman, is having an affair with Cassio. In many ways, Shakespeare's Othello remains a potent expression of race and racism three-hundred years after its publication. This volume offers compelling interpretations of the actions and the characters that have made this play so controversial. Essays discuss the question of Othello's color, the contradictory notions of black and white in the play, sexuality and racial difference, and whether Desdemona's marriage to Othello incites racism. Contributors include Ania Loomba, Peter Ackroyd, and Doris Adler.
Barron's Book Notes - William Shakespeare's Othello by
A guide to reading "Othello" with a critical and appreciative mind encouraging analysis of plot, style, form, and structure. Also includes background on the author's life and times, sample tests, term paper suggestions, and a reading list.
To access the Library's databases, start at the Library's homepage (https://www.polk.edu/library-tlcc-tutoring/).
From there, select the link for Articles/Databases.
The list of all PSC databases will appear--arranged alphabetically. You can also view the databases arranged by subject area by selecting the "Subjects" dropdown near the top.
After selecting a specific database, you will be prompted to sign in.
Students: Use your Passport information - Student ID number and Password (default: two-digit month and two-digit year of your birth).
Staff/Faculty: Use your Polk email address and password
If you are having difficulty signing in with your Passport credentials, try clearing the cookies/cache in your browser OR try using a different browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox, etc...). This will fix the problem about 90% of the time.
Professor Siler
Office: WLR240
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Shannon Schane
email: sschane@polk.edu
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