Databases

Scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles may be located by searching our subscription databases. Listed below are suggestions for the most useful databases for articles on topics in French language or literature. A complete list of all our Digital Resources are available from the Databases link.

• Academic Search Premier [INFO]
• Humanities International Index [INFO]
• MLA International Bibliography[INFO]

Books and More

The Library catalog (LOLA) is a collection of books and other print/non-print materials, such as videos/DVDs, music CDs, and scores. The catalog offers a variety of searches - Keyword, Subject, Author, Title, and Call Number. There are hundreds of topical subject headings for specific literary genres, defined periods, movements, or other concepts pertaining to literature.Genre headings are fairly uniform, are organized by nationality, and may be subdivided by century, or other time period. There is also a great variety of other literary subject headings. A few select examples:

• Subject search for French literature (or fiction, poetry, drama, etc.)
• Subject search for French Canadian literature(or fiction, poetry, drama, etc.)
• Subject search for French language
• Subject search for France civilization
• Subject search for France intellectual life
• Subject search for Authors, French

To search for works by or about specific writers:
Search by SUBJECT to find biographical and/or critical material about the writer.
Search by AUTHOR to find books written by the author.
Always enter personal names in INVERTED order; punctuation and capitalization not necessary.
EXAMPLE: To find books about the poet Charles Baudelaire, search under SUBJECT as follows:

• baudelaire charles

Note specific subdivisions after the name heading that designate:

• biographical works
• criticism in general
• or critical analyses of specific works

Reference Material

Reference sources are usually a good starting point for research - they provide background information on a topic, define key concepts, or cite critical research that has been done. Some key resources for French language or literature are listed below.

• Guide to French literature : 1789 to the present
• Seventeenth-century French writers
• The feminist encyclopedia of French literature
• The new Oxford companion to literature in French
• Modern French poets
• Nineteenth-century French poets
• Nineteenth-century French fiction writers : naturalism and beyond, 1860-1900
• Nineteenth century French fiction writers : romanticism and realism, 1800-1860
• French novelists since 1960
• French novelists, 1930-1960
• Grand dictionnaire Larousse-Chambers, anglais-français/français-Anglais
• Dictionnaire québécois-français : mieux se comprendre entre Francophones

See also the TCLC, CLC, and NCLC literary criticism series listed on the Resources page for English Literature, which have extensive coverage of international writers. Additional reference titles may be identified by seaching the Library catalog, by consulting with a Reference Librarian, or browsing the PQ1 - 3999 section of the Reference Shelves.

Web Sites

In general, web sites are not the best choices for serious research because there is no guarantee the information posted there is authoritative, current, or sufficiently in-depth. Only use sites that you know are reputable, scholarly, current, and unbiased. The following are links to sites that seem to meet these criteria:

• French Language and Culture (Ohio University)
• ARTFL Project
• Athena: Textes Français
• Albert Camus
• Digital Librarian: French Literature
• French Resources on the Web
• Electronic Text Collections in Western European Literature
• Gallica (Bibliotheque Nationale)
• Andre Gide
• Labyrinth Library of French Literature
• Literature of the French Middle Ages

More…

• Ask a Librarian
• Subject librarian: Lissa Zinfon

discipline=fr, subj=french, hint=french, format=subject guide