Frequently Asked Reference Questions

Literary Criticism

Example Questions that can be answered by this FAQ:

  • How do I find quality literary criticism of Shakespeare on the Web?
  • I need critical analysis of J.D. Salinger’s work.

We get a lot of requests from students who are interested in finding literary criticism online, so we’ve developed an extensive online resource that consists of three sections:

  • There are some good places for finding quality literary criticism, whether you are looking for information about a classic, poetry, or other literary work. A good place to start is with the Internet Public Library’s Literary Criticism Collection. This brings together hundreds of literary criticism and biography web sites (with annotations) arranged by author, subject, and time period.

  • In addition to the collection, we have a Literary Criticism resource to help you find literary criticism both online and in your library.

  • Another key feature of these resources is the IPL’s Online Literary Criticism Guide. This has a numerous collection of Internet resources, such as through LibrarySpot’s Lit Crit Feature. It also includes good poetry review and analysis sites, such as found on the well-respected resource, Poets.org.

You may also want to look at our FAQ on Finding and Writing Book Reports and Reviews.