Research Guides: English 342: Shakespeare: Shakespeare Databases, Journals, & Books

Research Entry Points

Start narrow: Search Shakespeare Survey for your play. This peer-reviewed book series publishes a new volume of important essays from Shakespeare scholars each year. Each volume is devoted to a theme, or play, or group of plays.

Have a more specific theme or character in mind? Search for books on your theme in a database or search engine.

Try a search like "Titus Andronicus" AND "body politic" or "Twelfth Night" and "green world" in one of these:

Overwhelmed with search results? Browse the recent essays in Gale Shakespearean Criticism on your play:

King Lear (vol. 177, vol. 200)
Titus Andronicus (vol. 169, vol. 198)
Macbeth (vol. 194, vol. 212)
Othello (vol. 166, vol. 189)
Measure for Measure (vol. 174, vol.196)
Twelfth Night (vol. 172, vol. 191)
Gale Literature Criticism also has a list of themes in Shakespearean criticism.

Gale Shakespearean Criticism covers three plays or themes per volume, and pulls together some of the most important criticism written throughout the centuries on that play or theme.

Stuck? Contact Gina! (see box on the left)

Shakespeare Criticism Collections

Here are some Shakespeare-specific sources of criticism available electronically:

Shakespeare Survey
Book series: essays of Shakespeare criticism

Gale Literature This link opens in a new window
Includes Shakespearean Criticism, a series of selected critical responses to Shakespeare's works as literature and in performance. *If you get too many results, you may want to look for the Publication Title limiter on the right and select "Shakespearean Criticism" to narrow to that source.*

Journals:

Shakespeare Quarterly, published by the Folger Shakespeare Library. (Use the "Search Within Journal" search box.)
Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association. (Use the search box at the top.)
Shakespeare Bulletin, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. (Use the "Search Within Journal" search box.)

Other Databases with Literary Criticism

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
The MLA International Bibliography is a subject index for books and articles published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. The electronic version of the Bibliography dates back to 1925 and contains over 1.7 million citations from more than 4,400 periodicals (including peer-reviewed e-journals) and 1,000 book publishers. Subscription to the MLA International Bibliography also includes access to the MLA Directory of Periodicals database.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Provides image and full-text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. Coverage varies by journal title, issues from the most recent 3-5 years are not available through JSTOR. Mobile-friendly site.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Project Muse provides full text access to more than 300 humanities and social science journals from various publishers. Disciplines covered include art, anthropology, literature, film, theatre, history, ethnic and cultural studies, music, philosophy, religion, psychology, sociology and women's studies. Coverage for most titles includes the most current issue, however some titles are archival (not current)
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Okay, not a database. But Google Scholar displays (a very rough count of) how many times an article has been cited, so that's handy.

Resource Sharing

There are lots of publications that the SMC Library doesn't have! Search Library Search and click "Expand Your Search" to see books, articles, and more that you can request from other libraries.