Drama Subject Guide

REFERENCE MATERIALS provide definitions, background information and an overview of topics. They also provide select citations for beginning your research. Consult LINUS and/or the Reference Librarian for additional titles.

Examples of Reference Sources
   McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama. (5 vols.)         REF PN 1625 .M3 1984
   Literature Resource Center   LMU only
   World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre. (6 vols.)    REF PN 1861 .W67 1994
   Ancient Writers. (2 vols.)      REF PA 3002 .A5 1982
   Contemporary Dramatists.       REF PR 737 .C57 1999
   Shakespearean Criticism. (anthology/bibliography of articles/excerpts)    REF PR 2965 .S43 1984  

Individual Dramatists and Dramatic Schools
  The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller.         MAIN STACKS PS 3525 .I5156 Z548 1997
  Study of Sophoclean Drama.      MAIN STACKS PA 4417 .K48 1994
  British Drama, 1660-1779: A Critical History.       MAIN STACKS PR 701 .K38 1995

Bibliographical Resources
  Classical Greek and Roman Drama: An Annotated Bibliography.       REF PA 3024 .F67 1989
  African American Women Playwrights: A Research Guide.          MAIN STACKS PS 153 .N5 G29 1999

Concordances
   A Complete and Systematic Concordance to the Works of Shakespeare.      REF PR 2892 .S6

LINUS indexes books by playwright as author, and anthologies by subject heading (do a Word search).  If you don't know the author but can remember the title of the play, use the Play Index volumes in Reference [INDEX PN 2012 .P5] to find out if the play is in a collection/anthology, and who the author is. Then go back to LINUS to see if we have the anthology, or a collection of the author's plays. The text of the play may also be in the LION database. Look also for an authoritative version via a reliable Web site. Some plays are published separately in a periodical. And some have never been published at all!   Ask for help at Reference if you haven't been able to find the play you want.

Literature Online [LION]  LMU only  - Search AUTHOR, then click on WORKS and WWW TEXTS links.
Electronic Text Archives and Plays Online - WWW Virtual Library's links to old, modern and new play collections
English Server Drama Collection  - collection of plays, a little criticism
The Perseus Digital Library  - see collection of classical and Renaissance drama
Bartleby.com - commercial site: search engine, texts of fiction and plays
Index to Twentieth-Century Spanish Plays: In Collections, Anthologies, and Periodicals     MAIN STACKS PQ 6115 .H37 2000

The Charles Von der Ahe Library provides access to journal articles via print and online subscriptions (see Databases). Indexes may be online, on CD-ROM, or in paper format. If you are off campus, please read Connect to LMU's library databases from off campus.

Humanities Abstracts   LMU only
       Indexes over 460 periodicals in the humanities, including poetry, from 1984 to the present.
         From 1994 on, may include abstracts.
         Print version, available as Humanities Index, goes back to 1974.   INDEX HM 1.A3 S61

ProQuest Research Library    LMU only
       Indexes journals and magazines; some with full-text available. Limiting to the Humanities module
         in the Collections menu will limit search to mostly academic journals.
         The General Interest module includes magazines, and there are modules for newspapers as well.
        **ProQuest Tutorial available

The MLA Bibliography   LMU only
       A comprehensive index covering over 3000 journals covering the literatures of the world as well as language,
         linguistics and folklore. Also indexes literary books and contributions to anthologies.

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature [online database; print version available]
        Annual comprehensive bibliography of literature in English. Part of the Literature Online / LION
         database covering 1920-2000, with over 750,000 records.   Select from LION internal menu of databases.

For Theatrical Reviews: The newspaper segments of EBSCOhost, ProQuest and Lexis-Nexis may provide reviews of performances and some drama criticism. See also the reviews in the International Index to the Performing Arts. LMU only  LINUS indexes books that cover historical performances of important plays.

Consult LMU's Journal List to determine if the Library has the journals you need. Check Other Libraries to see if the University of California, California State University, or U.S.C. libraries have those journals that LMU doesn't hold in paper, microfilm, or online. You can get articles via our Document Delivery Service for a small charge. Ask at Reference.

SEARCHING THE INTERNET can be very time-consuming, frustrating and sometimes unproductive. Unlike academic journals, there is little quality control on the Web. Try to find some expert lists or selective directories to point you to reliable, authoritative resources. Examples of these include:

A Selective Directory:
  Librarians Index to the Internet  

Expert Lists:
  English Server Poetry Collection  
  Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet

Focused Site:
  Introduction to Greek Stagecraft

To find additional Web sites, see Searching the Web for recommended search engines.

Remember to keep track of ALL the resources you may use in your research and writing. Complete citations (minimally, author, book title, publisher and year for a book; author, article title, journal title, volume, issue, date and pages for an article) are a must!  Web citations need the URL and date consulted as well as the usual information. Check your LMU style manual, or the MLA Style page.

back to top

Tony Amodeo
English Literature Subject Specialist
Reference Librarian