English Language and Literature Subject Guide
Dictionaries
9 resources available
- Restricted to WMU users 
- Open Access
Oxford Companion to American Literature, The
PS 21 .H3 1995 (Ref)
A general encyclopedia with over 5,000 entries on authors, works, terms, characters, movements, etc. An excellent source for brief factual information about American literature.
PE 1625 .O86 (Ref)
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is an historical dictionary of English, covering the language from the earliest times to the present day. It provides not only the current meanings of words, but also traces their development through time. Entries contain detailed etymological analysis, and are illustrated by quotations from a wide range of English language sources from around the world, making the OED a unique historical record.
Full text online from over 400 encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference books. Search a topic, build a concept map or browse information sources organized by subject. Find text, images, sound files, sortable data tables and more.
Oxford Companion to English Literature, The
Ed. Margaret Drabble. 5th ed. 1995.
PR 19.O9x (Ref)
A general encyclopedia with entries on writers, literary works, major characters, movements, periods, terminology, etc. A very useful place for brief factual information.
More than 200 dictionaries, encyclopedias, language reference and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. In addition to text, some sources include maps, illustrations, and Web links. Users can search one resource, a group of selected resources, or all of them at once. Regularly updated. This subscription is limited to five simultaneous users. Please logout when finished.
Librarian's Comment: The following online dictionaries within this general resource may be very useful to students of English language and literature:
The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English
The Concise Oxford Dictionary
The Oxford American Thesaurus of Current English
The Oxford Paperback Thesaurus
A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory
3rd ed., 1991. PN 41 .C83 1991 (Ref)
One of the best of numerous dictionaries of literary terms. Not as thorough on poetry as the New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Includes forms, genres, kinds, groups, schools, themes, character types, styles, etc. Besides a definition some entries include etymology, examples, or an illustrative passage from a poem.
The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama
Ed. Stanley Hochman, 2nd ed., 5 vols., 1984
PN 1625 .M3 1984 (Ref)
Most entries are on individual dramatists but there are also substantial essays on the drama of particular nations. Long articles include biography, critical interpretations, summaries of selected plays, a list of plays, and a bibliography. There are numerous illustrations, usually of productions of plays.
The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
PN 1021 .E5 1995 (Ref)
A scholarly, thorough, detailed overview of poetic forms, history, theory, technique, and criticism. Not for people with only a casual interest in poetry. A major revision of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Entries usually include a definition, discussion of history, examples, and a bibliography.
Indexes the individual articles and the indexes in thousands of subject encyclopedias and other reference books. Provides citations to specific volumes and page numbers. Links to the WMU Library Catalog for sources we own, but doesn't contain full text itself.
Librarian's Comment: The following dictionaries of language and literature are available electronically in Xreferplus:
A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics
Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang
Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Millennium Edition
Dictionary of Eponyms, Manser
Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Abbreviations, H.W. Wilson
Rawson's Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk
Rawson's Wicked Words
The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms
The Bloomsbury Good Word Guide
The Browser's Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases
The Devil's Dictionary
The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary
Dictionary of Shakespeare, Peter Collin Publishing
The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature
The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English
The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story