How To: Literary Research

Guide Notes:
For the purposes of this guide, the resources are focused mainly on American and English literature. If you need information or help finding resources about literature from other regions, we would be happy to help you. Please contact a librarian at: refdesk@wnc.edu

Sub-Fields:

• Fiction
• Non-fiction
• Poetry
• Technical Communication
• Composition Studies
• Rhetoric
• Linguistics
• American Literature
• World Literature

Subject Keywords:
characterization, dialogue, genre, imagery, plot, perspective, style, theme(s), symbol(s)(ism), tone, essay, novel, novella, short story, prose, poetry, personification, literary analysis, literary criticism, critical theory

LoC Classifications:

• PE - English Language
• PN - Literature (general)
• PR - English Literature
• PS - American Literature
• PZ - Fiction

Related Subject Guides:

• English 101
• Anthropology
• American History
• World History

The information in this guide is taken from Credo - one of WNC Library's encyclopedic databases.  If you don't find the genre or movement you are researching, you can go directly to Credo.

• Detective fiction: Topic Page

  Genre of novel or short story in which a mystery is solved mainly by the action of a professional or amateur detective. Where the mystery to be solved concerns a crime, the work may be called crime fiction. MORE

• Gothic Fiction

  Its thematic currency was fear mingled with desire, its plots were openly obsessed with the workings of power (the suffering heroine and the Satanic villain were among its stereotypes)...MORE

• Historical novel: Topic Page

  A novel with a period in history as its setting, which includes historical events and characters. MORE

• Horror Fiction

  H. P. Lovecraft declares: `The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is of the unknown. MORE

• Letters: Topic Page

  In literature, written messages, ranging from those addressed to the public and those sent from lover to lover, to business letters and thank-you notes. The common quality they share is a lively style, echoing the personality of the sender yet aimed at the mind and heart of the receiver. MORE

• Mystery: Topic Page

  Or mystery story, literary genre in which the cause (or causes) of a mysterious happening, often a crime, is gradually revealed by the hero or heroine. MORE

• Novel: Topic Page

  In modern literary usage, a sustained work of prose fiction a volume or more in length. It is distinguished from the short story and the fictional sketch, which are necessarily brief. MORE

• Pastoral: Topic Page

  Literary work in which the shepherd's life is presented in a conventionalized manner. In this convention the purity and simplicity of shepherd life is contrasted with the corruption and artificiality of the court or the city. The pastoral is found in poetry, drama, and fiction, and many subjects. MORE

• Romance: Topic Page

  In literature, tales of love and chivalric adventure, in verse or prose, that became popular in France about 1200 and spread throughout Europe. MORE

• Short story: Topic Page

  Short work of prose fiction, usually consisting of between 500 and 10,000 words, which typically either sets up and resolves a single narrative point or depicts a mood or an atmosphere. MORE

• Beat writers

  From Columbia Encyclopedia
  Term applied to certain American artists and writers who were popular during the 1950s. Essentially anarchic, members of the beat generation rejected traditional social and artistic forms. MORE

• Harlem Renaissance: Topic Page

  Term used to describe a flowering of African-American literature and art in the 1920s, mainly in the Harlem district of New York City. MORE

• Imagism

  From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
  A school of poetry which flourished in England and America between 1912 and 1914 and emphasized the virtues of clarity, compression, and precision. MORE

• Magic Realism: Topic Page

  A type of post-modernist fiction that mixes elements of fantasy, fable, and folklore with realistic narrative, imbuing it with a fabulous or dreamlike quality. MORE

• Modernism: Topic Page

  Modernism is based on a concern with form and the exploration of technique as opposed to content and narrative. In literature, writers experimented with alternatives to orthodox sequential storytelling. MORE

• Performance poetry

  From Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century
  Interpreted broadly, the category of performance poetry might include any poem that is read, sung, recited, acted, or otherwise performed before an audience. MORE

• Romanticism: Topic Page

  A late 18c and early 19c movement in art, literature and music, characterized by an emphasis on feelings and emotions, often using imagery taken from nature, and creating forms which are relatively free from rules and set orders. MORE

• Slam poetry

  From Contemporary Youth Culture: An International Encyclopedia
  SLAM is a hybrid of spoken word and performed poetry, sometimes with music, that gives individuals an opportunity to voice their opinions and feelings on any topic; conveys urgency, action, and excitement. MORE

• Transcendentalism: Topic Page

  Transcendentalism was a series of new ideas that flourished among writers and philosophers in New England during the 19th century. MORE