Literary Research & Literature Criticism

Includes: African American Culture; English Novelists; Gothic Novelists; Irish Novelists; Latin American Novelists; Native American Novelists; Novelists with Feminist Themes; Picaresque Novelists; Political Novelists; Psychological Novelists; Religious Novelists; Satirical Novelists; Science Fiction Novelists; Spanish Novelists

Volumes include: Avant-Garde Poets; Beat Poets; British Renaissance Poets; Experimental Poets; Feminist Poets; Gay and Lesbian Themes; Greek Poets; Green Movement Poets; Irish Poets; Latin American Poets; Nature Poets; Romantic Poets; Spanish Poets; Surrealist Poets; Visionary Poets; War Poets

Includes book-length analyses of individual authors and individual works, as well as the following genres and themes: African Children's and Youth Literature; American Feminist Playwrights; American Indian Poetry; Black Writers and the Hispanic Canon; British Women Fiction Writers of the 1890s; Children's Literature in Canada; The French Essay; French Structuralism; French Theater Since 1968; The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1550-1900; Jewish-American Fiction, 1917-1987; Late Nineteenth-Century American Diary Literature; Medieval French Romance; Modern and Contemporary Spanish Women Poets; Modern Latin-American Novel; The Movement: British Poets of the 1950s; Native American Literature; The New Novel in France; Science Fiction After 1900; Science Fiction Before 1900; Spanish Chronicles of the Indies; Twentieth-Century French Women Novelists; Women Writers of the English Renaissance.

Volumes include: Classical Literature and Its Times; Italian Literature and Its Times; Middle Eastern Literatures and Their Times; Spanish and Portuguese Literatures and Their Times (The Iberian Peninsula); British and Irish Literature and Its Times: The Victorian Era to the Present; British and Irish Literature and Its Times: Celtic Migrations to the Reform Bill (Beginnings-1830s); African Literature and Its Times; Latin American Literature and Its Times

925 pages. 2 volumes. Scribner Writers Series. Contains biographical and critical essays on the work of important African American writers. Presents scholar-signed essays prepared by experts in the field.

162 pages. Twayne's World Authors Series: 853. "In this colorful, lively analysis of selected African literature for young people, Osayimwense Osa focuses on Anglophone countries - Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa - and primarily on the novel, a popular genre in contemporary adolescent literature in Anglophone Africa."

936 pages. 2 volumes. Scribner Writers Series. Contains essays on African writers from seventeen countries writing in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, and indigenous languages. Subjects span the late nineteenth century to the present.

1326 pages. 4 volumes. Includes biography, criticism, and bibliography for each writer; also includes lesser-known writers whose work is found in journals, letters, stories, and even hymns. Entries feature an assessment of the writer's works; basic biography and complete bibliography, as well as comprehensive data on writers' names, including pseudonyms, aliases, parents' names and husbands' names, etc.

526 pages. Traces the development of Arab women's literature from the nineteenth-century through the end of the twentieth century, arranged by country. Also includes a comprehensive bibliography of writing by Arab women.

863 pages. 1,110 entries. 94 images. Covers the role and influence of African American cultural leaders from all walks of life. Carefully written articles, with illustrations, cover the important events in a writer's life, education, major works, honors and awards, and family and important associates. Explores what inspired various African-American writers to create poems, plays, short stories, novels, essays, opinion pieces and how those writings contributed to culture in America today.

3784 pages. 6 volumes. Explores the history of women and feminism throughout literature, from classical antiquity to modern times.

762 pages. 2 volumes. Hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries survey contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer American literature and its social contexts.

1703 pages. 3 volumes. Spans all facets of the gothic, including visual and performing arts, society and culture, themes and settings and much more. Authors covered include Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde and many others. Complete with primary source documents and critical material to provide contextual perspective, a related chronology of key events, full-text commentaries, lists of further readings and more.

519 pages. Greenwood Icons Series. Examines 24 of the most popular and culturally significant topics within African American literature's long and immensely fascinating history. The entries cover such writers as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and August Wilson; major works, such as Invisible Man, Native Son, and Their Eyes Were Watching God; and a range of cultural topics, including the black arts movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and the jazz aesthetic. Written by expert contributors, the essays discuss the enduring significance of these topics in American history and popular culture.

872 pages. 2 volumes. Entries provide in-depth historical background information on each movement as well as modern critical interpretation of each movement's characteristic styles and themes. Approximately 25 movements are covered, including absurdism, Greek drama, modernism, science fiction/fantasy, surrealism and others.

634 pages. 2 volumes. Examines the overriding themes found in literature. Beyond outlining the general treatment of the theme in American, British and world literature, the set profiles authors and highlights more than 50 major works centered around the theme. Also included are an extended list of works in all genres and media (fine art, dance, film, etc.) related to the theme.

654 pages. 2 volumes. Provides readers with an overview of literary works that explore the theme of the American dream. Analyzes poetry, plays, short stories, novels, and works of nonfiction that address this theme in some capacity, and how that theme has been treated in literature at different times in history and across diverse cultures.

682 pages. 2 volumes. Presents a myriad of viewpoints, so that modern readers can begin to grasp the complexities of war and its impact. Such stories give voice to the individuals who fight and are fought against, who are injured, who suffer on the battlefield and at home, and who, inevitably, can no longer speak for themselves. Examines dominant and recurring subthemes in the literature of war; including survival, terrorism, leadership, and genocide.

1386 pages. 3 volumes. Examines works that chronicle a life or are compiled from narrated memories. The entries focus on autobiographies, diaries, journals and oral histories from around the world and various time periods to bring us closer to the human experience of history. Some entries look at those who carry on the tradition of oral history, such the West African Griot, Scandinavian Skald, British and Gaelic bards, and Native American storytellers.

1413 pages. 3 volumes. Contains 300 entries that explore literary works that deal with propaganda. Includes a wide variety of genres and has an international scope. Explores the works of authors shaped by a variety of political, social, and economic movements, and places each work in its historical context. Each entry includes an overview of the work, historical context, primary themes and style, and critical discussion.

1422 pages. 3 volumes. Provides historical, cultural and social context of works that focus on armed conflict throughout the world and time. It highlights the realities of war, its impact on society, and how it affects our understanding of it.

695 pages. Illustrates the extent and frequency of censorship in nearly every form of writing by tyrants, totalitarian states, church institutions, and democratic governments alike that have banned books that challenged their assumptions or questioned their activities.

518 pages. Profiles the censorship of many religious works, including the frequently challenged Harry Potter series, which critics accuse of promoting witchcraft and anti-family themes.

421 pages. Examines the issues underlying the suppression of more than 120 works deemed sexually obscene.

462 pages. Discusses the many works that have been banned over the centuries because they offended or merely ignored official truths. Topics include widely held assumptions, or contained ideas or language unacceptable to a state, religious institution, or private moral watchdog.

1438 pages. 3 volumes. Spanning from the earliest published examples dating to 16th C. Europe, through the Declaration of Independence, to the 2006 Euston Manifesto, this work describes the authors and their causes, as well as the social, political, economic philosophies that are behind them. The context of history will play an important role in describing the circumstances of their writing and how they were received and acted upon at the time of writing and after.

714 pages. "Covering the entire spectrum of the literature of the Holocaust era, from the beginnings of Nazism through the concentration camp experience, survivor syndrome and second generation response, this detailed survey includes entries on more than 200 authors and 300 works."

1730 pages. 2 volumes. "Covers writers from the ancient Greeks to 20th-century authors. Includes biographical-bibliographical entries on nearly 500 writers and approximately 550 entries focusing on significant works of world literature. Each author entry provides a detailed overview of the writer's life and works. Work entries cover a particular piece of world literature in detail."

953 pages. 2 volumes. Provides first or unique coverage of both domestic and international works of drama from the first decade of the 21st century, featuring in-depth information on around 175 plays and musicals first produced between the years 2000 and 2009.

1428 pages. 3 volumes. Brings the most important fictional works of this time period into view, discussing plot, characters, critical reception and more. Features broad coverage of multiethnic/multicultural communities and curricula, bringing an insight to readers of contemporary global literature in English translation.

668 pages. Provides a comprehensive readers advisory for children's and young adult literatures to help readers independently choose titles of interest published in the last year. Features approximately 2,200 entries listing everything young readers, librarians and teachers need to know to make reading selections.