Literary Theory and Criticism is a field that is increasingly interdisciplinary. For example, Cultural Studies, a growing body of criticism with many branches, analyses literature through the lens of culture. Science and Technology Studies explores the intersections between science and literature. Rather than simply limiting your searches to literature or humanities databases, you can do searches in databases that primarily support other subjects. Just be sure, if you do so, to include words like literature and criticism in your search. To find a list of subject specific databases, go to our library homepage and then click on Database & Article Searching. Subjects are listed alphabetically and correspond to different departments on campus.
In all probability however, you will still find many, if not most, of your articles in the Literature databases. A full list of the Literature databases can be found at the English Language and Literature database page. Below are a few suggested databases to start your research.
This database does not use Library of Congress Subject Headings, but its own controlled vocabulary. This is true for many databases. However, it is also true that the subject headings (sometimes referred to as subjects or descriptors) used in databases will often be similar (if not the same) as the Subject Heasings in our library catalog. Since MLA deals primarily with theory and criticism, I wouldn't search broadly for the terms literature, theory, and criticism. I would instead begin by searching by subject for the particular theory or type of criticism you are interested in. You could also search by author for the name of a specific critic, or search by subject for the author of a primary work, or the title of a primary work.
For example, if I was interested in feminist criticism, I would start out by searching for that phrase in MLA. In the Subject Headings, listed below the citations, I'd discover that a good subject heading to describe this particular topic is "feminist literary theory and criticism."
You could do an author search for a particular critic, (putting the last name first). For example: Showalter, Elaine.
Or you could do a subject search for Virginia Woolf and a subject search for To The Lighthouse.
Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. The database covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics.
