There are seventeen authors whose names grace the façade of Kent Library.  Often referred to as "the seventeen dead white guys," they are: 

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
John Henry cardinal Newman (1801-1890)
Eugene Field (1850-1895)
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
Homer
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
John Milton (1608-1674)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Mark Twain  (1835-1910)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Virgil
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
Geoffrey Chaucer (d.1400)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Background Information  |  Find Articles  |  Find Books  |  Criticism & Reviews  |  Primary Sources  |  Organizations  |  Web Resources  |

Encyclopedias and other reference works are an excellent place to start a research project or simply learn more about a particular topic.  They provide topic summaries, context, and bibliographies for further reading.  To find information about any of these authors, consult:

All Things Shakespeare:  An Encyclopedia of Shakespeare's World
    R 822.33 A6ol
Cyclopedia of World Authors
    R 809 C992 1997
Dictionary of Literary Biography
    R 928.1 D561
Encyclopedia of American Literature
    R 810.3 En193
Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z:  The Essential Guide to His Life
    R 818.309 P752so
Encyclopedia of German Literature
    R 830.90003 En19 
The Oxford Companion to Chaucer
    R 821.17 Ox24
The Oxford Companion to English Literature
    R 820.3 D78o 2000 
The Oxford Companion to Mark Twain
    R 817.44 A6ca
The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation
    R 809 Ox26
 

Search indexes, abstracts, and databases to find journal, magazine, and newspaper articles.  For a complete list of Kent Library's online indexes and databases, see the Find: articles page (http://library.semo.edu/find/articles.html).

To find historical/source materials, including literary criticism, use the following print sources, which are located in the Indexes/Abstracts area:

International Index
Social Science and Humanities Index
Humanities Index
Biography Index
MLA Bibliography

To find recent articles, literary criticism, and scholarly/peer-reviewed articles use the following online databases:

 MLA Bibliography
Wilson Omnifile

Use the Kent Library Catalog (http://library.semo.edu/find/books.html) to find books, periodicals (journals, magazines, & newspapers), videos, government documents and other materials.

Keyword searches allow you to use your own words as search terms.
Subject heading searches use Library of Congress subject headings. Printed volumes of these headings are located near the Reference Desk on the main floor.

Search by the person's last name for either a subject search or an author search.  For example:

Author search (retrieves works by the person)

Twain, Mark
results:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain's Autobiography
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches
A Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Innocents Abroad
Roughing It

Subject search (retrieves subject headings leading to works about the person or his works)

Twain, Mark
results
Mark Twain 1835-1910
Mark Twain 1835-1910 Anecdotes
Mark Twain 1835-1910 Bibliography
Mark Twain 1835-1910 Censorship
Mark Twain 1835-1910 Characters
Mark Twain 1835-1910 Childhood and Youth
Mark Twain 1835-1910 Criticism and Interpretation
Mark Twain 1835-1910 Quotations
Mark Twain 1835-1910 Travel
 

Browse the shelves by call number.  Use the Dewey Decimal chart (http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/fi_books_dd_list.htm) to get you in the right subject areas or try the following:

Works By		Works About
843.78 H874	Victor Hugo	928.4 H87
230, 252, 828	John Henry Newman	922.242 N465
811 F454	Eugene Field	928 F454
891.783 T588	Leo Tolstoy	928.917 T588
883	Homer	883, 913.3
824.82 C199	Thomas Carlyle	824.82, 928.2
822.33	William Shakespeare	822.33
818.3 T391	Henry David Thoreau	928.1 T391
821.47 M642	John Milton	928.2 M642
811.38 W596	Walt Whitman	811.38
817.44	Mark Twain	817.44
814.36 Em34	Ralph Waldo Emerson	814.36
873.1 V587	Virgil	873.1
824.86 R897	John Ruskin	928.2 R897
821.17 C393	Geoffrey Chaucer	928.2 C393
832.62 G554	Johann Wolfgang von Goethe	832.62 G554, 928.3 G555
811.32 P752, 818.309 P752	Edgar Allan Poe	818.309 P752

 

Literary Critics and Criticism
    R 801.95 C8684 1999
Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800
    R 809 L712

For additional sources of literary criticism, see Kent Library Research Guide:  Literary Criticism at http://library.semo.edu/learn/guides/litcrit.html

In the study of literature, the literary work itself is considered to be the primary source.  For instance, if one were studying Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the novel would be the primary source while the various concordances, commentaries, and critical reviews of it would be secondary or tertiary sources.

Professional organizations and/or societies often provide very useful topic related information.

American Academy of Arts and Letters
    http://www.artsandletters.org
Association of Literary Scholars and Critics
    http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~wcd/alsc!.htm
International Comparative Literature Association
    http://www.byu.edu/icla
 

Victor Hugo and His Works
    http://comp.uark.edu/~zhagins/hugo.html
John Henry Cardinal Newman
    http://www.newman.upenn.edu/jhcn.html
Eugene Field Links
    http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco/literature/eugenefield/links/menu.html
Reminiscences of Tolstoy
    http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&part=0&id=TolRemi
Homer Homepage
    http://www.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/literature/world_literature/homer.html
Thomas Carlyle
    http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/carlyle.htm
The Shakespeare Society of America
    http://www.shakespearesociety.org/home.htm
The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau
    http://www.thoreau.niu.edu/
John Milton
    http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/
The Walt Whitman Archive
    http://www.whitmanarchive.org/
The Mark Twain Papers and Project
    http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/MTP/
Ralph Waldo Emerson
    http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/
 Virgil
    http://www.uwm.edu/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg041.htm
Ruskin Museum
    http://www.ruskinmuseum.com/ruskin.htm
Chaucer MetaPage
    http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/
Goethe Society of North America
    http://www.goethesociety.org/
Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
    http://www.eapoe.org/
 

For a list of Web searching tools, see the Find: web resources page (http://library.semo.edu/find/webpages.html).