This guide provides a general introduction to Library resources relating to Comparative Literature.
Primary sources refer to sources which are as close as possible to the origin of the information or idea under study. They have originated in the time period concerned that haven't been filtered through interpretation.
In literary studies, primary sources are often creative works such as poems, stories, novels, correspondence, and so on (c.f. films and paintings in art; memoirs and eyewitness accounts in historical studies; or government documents in political studies).
Secondary sources provide analysis, commentary, or criticism on the primary sources. Secondary sources have often been created with the benefit of hindsight.
The chief value of the secondary source lies not just in their analysis, commentary or criticism but in the fact that it points you to the primary source through a citation. It is important to read (and then cite) the primary source if you can, because that will enable you to verify the accuracy and completeness of the information. Reading the primary source could even enable you to question the related secondary source.
Sometimes, some primary sources are unobtainable (e.g. if they are out of print or impossible to find) or written in a language you don't understand. In these circumstances, secondary sources are the only information you rely on, and you should make this clear in your work.
Sometimes, secondary sources could become primary sources, e.g. if you are discussing the history of literary criticism of an author, then scholarly articles throughout a particular period can become the primary sources of your study
See also the Subject Guide:
Bartleby.com provides the texts of best literary works from a wide range of classic authors.
https://www.bartleby.com/fiction/
https://www.bartleby.com/verse/
ProQuest One Literature is probably the most extensive and most important source of literary works for the study of comparative literature. It contains more than 500,000 primary works - including novels, short stories, poems, plays, and rare and obscure texts by writers from around the world in and beyond the Western canon.
Primary wroks are enhanced by interpretive sources such as book reviews and criticism sourced from wider, interdiscipliary publications in the fields such as humanities and history, with diverse, global perspectives sourced from all over the world - Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America - the majority of which are in full-text.
The database can be browed by literary period, literary movement, author name or literature collections.
ProQuest One Literature (PQOL) is the upgraded version of Literature Online (LION, also in the Database list) but the content is double the size of LION.
Norton Critical Editions collection
This is a curated collection of 49 essential classic texts in the e-book format of the traditional and authoritative Norton Critical Editions series. The titles are drawn from American Literature, 18th and 19th Century Literature, World Literature, Early Modern Drama, Short Stories and Poetry, and Religion and Epics. The texts are also accompanied with essays and other secondary readings, bibliographies and historical and contemporary analysis. All the individual titles are indexed and searchable by title or author in DiscoverEd.
As part of the Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO), this unique collection of monographs includes 7,717 works in English, 6,504 in French and 3,640 in German published in Britain and on the Continent during the Romantic period and the early Victoria era. Sourced from Castle Corvey in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the Corvey Collection is one of the most important collections of works from the period in existence, with particular strength in especially difficult-to-find or even previously unknown works – by women writers in particular. The collection’s vast archive of materials documents the nature and scope of literary publication in England and on the Continent during the Romantic period and the early years of the Victorian era. Scholars can research and explore a range of topics, including Romantic literary genres; mutual influences of British, French and German Romanticism; literary culture; women writers of the period; the canon and Romantic aesthetics. Covering 1790-1840.
The first authorized electronic edition of Brecht's writings, Bertolt Brechts Werke (Jubiläumsausgabe) comprises the poetry, drama, and major critical writings contained within the Ausgewählte Werke in sechs Bänden. Produced with the cooperation of German publishers Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, this new literary resource will provide scholars with much broader access to a range of Brecht's works. It will enable researchers to carry out more comprehensive analyses that compare and contrast his approach to the role of drama and his philosophy from his early work during the Weimar Republic through his time in the United States to his final residence in the German Democratic Republic. This edition is based on Bertold Brecht - Ausgewählte Werke in sechs Bänden - Jubiläumsausgabe zum 100. Geburtstag, which collects Brecht's works and writings in six volumes, with brief notes on each text.
This database contains the scanned and digitized first editions and first published complete editions by more than 600 German-speaking authors of the 18th century. The approximately 2,700 works with almost 4,500 volumes reflect the broad spectrum of German literature from the early stages of the age of Enlightenment to the later part of the period. 18th Century German Literature Online contains the complete historical editions of leading representatives of the Enlightenment such as Bürger, Gottsched, Herder, Kant, Lessing, Mendelssohn, Moritz, Nicolai, Wieland and many more, the writings of the "Göttinger Hainbund" and works of the Swiss Enlightenment. Most notably however, it also contains the writings of hundreds of authors who were less well-known or are nowadays all but forgotten, but who nevertheless contributed to the literary Enlightenment in Germany with their lyrical, dramatic and epic works.
The database provides access to 1,960 vernacular texts dated prior to 1375 (the year of Boccaccio’s death). The verse and prose works include early masters of Italian literature like Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, as well as lesser-known and obscure texts by poets, merchants, and medieval chroniclers. The OVI database was created to aid in the compilation of an historical dictionary of the Italian language, the Tesoro della lingua italiana delle origini, (portions of which are now available online).
Black Drama, now in its third edition, contains the full text of more than 1,700 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. James Vernon Hatch, the playwright, historian, and curator of the landmark Hatch-Billops Collection, is the project’s editorial advisor. More than 40 percent of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.
Carcanet publishes the most comprehensive and diverse list of modern and classic poetry in English and in translation, as well as a range of inventive fiction, Lives and Letters and literary criticism. The digital Carcanet Collection offers access to more than 100 titles, including career-defining new work from the poets laureate of Jamaica (Mervyn Morris) and Wales (Gillian Clarke), a debut from rising star Joey Connolly, plus much-anticipated follow-up collections from Sinead Morrissey, Tara Bergin, Caroline Bird and Karen McCarthy Woolf. Each title, and the collection as a whole, is fully-searchable by keyword. Mobile users can also download the 'Exactly' app on an iOS or Android device from the relevant app store, and instantly access the book collection. Access will be granted to new e-books published throughout the year.
Drama Online is a digital library of the world’s most studied and critically-acclaimed plays, accompanied by a wealth of innovative teaching and performance tools, critical analysis, contextual information, references and practical texts. We have subscribed to following components:
Collection of 60,000 images of original manuscripts and printed material with accompanying thematic essays. The content comes from library and archive collections worldwide, and can used to support teaching and learning. Full details of how to incorporate images into course materials are provided. Covering 1492-1962.
The ARTFL Project's French Women Writers (FWW) Project is a searchable database containing over 158 full-text works by French women authors from the 16th to the 20th century.
The National Theatre Collection brings the stage to life through access to high definition streamed video of world-class theatre productions and unique archival material, offering insight into British theatre-making and performance studies. The collection contains 30 video performances. As a supplement to the filmed productions, exclusive digitised archival materials such as prompt scripts, costume designs, and more are available to provide behind-the-scenes background and contextual information. The featured 30 performances are:
Twentieth Century North American Drama contains 2,050+ plays from the United States and Canada. In addition to providing a comprehensive full-text resource for students in the performing arts, the collection offers a unique window into the economic, historical, social, and political psyche of two countries. Scholars and students who use the database will have a new way to study the signal events of the twentieth century—including the Depression, the role of women, the Cold War, and more—through the plays and performances of writers who lived through these decades.
Victorian Popular Culture contains a wide range of source material relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930. The resource is divided into four self-contained sections, covering: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic; Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; and Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema. Covering 1779-1930.
