English Literature I - Beowulf to Milton 

Explore the development of a theme, motif, idea, or symbol across the historical span of the medieval and Renaissance periods.

Choose two texts, one preceding and the other succeeding the year 1500. For each you will locate a specific textual reference (phrase, line, scene) that provides a good instance of your symbol or idea, and tell us about the cultural, religious, or social changes that have taken place in the century that separates those two poems.

There are a number of great resources in the FSC reference stacks that can help you with your research:

Literature:

British Writers - REF PR85.B688

The Cambridge History of English Literature - REF PR83.C22 1965 15 vols.  

Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature - REF PR83.C4

Dictionary of Literary Biography - REF PS243.A54

Historical Context:

Dictionary of Medieval Civilization - REF CB351.D24

Encyclopedia of the Renaissance and the Reformation - REF CB359.B47

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Medieval Civilization - REF CB353.G7

Literary criticism for any author is also shelved with the works of that author. For instance, if you are looking for criticism or interpretation of Chaucer, those works will be shelved next to Chaucer's works. Browsing the library stacks near your subject often yields excellent resources.

These databases are a good place to start to find articles from scholarly journals that address literature and the humanities:

CREDO Reference - Encyclopedic content online.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Online version of Britannica. Many entries provide links to scholarly articles on the subject.

JSTOR - Provides full runs of various journals and periodicals. One of the best places to start for articles that date before the 1990s.

Literary Reference Center - Full-text information on thousands of authors and their works across literary disciplines and timeframes.

Project Muse - Full-text articles covering all aspects of the humanities.

Some other multidisciplinary databases that might be helpful with providing historical context:

Academic OneFile - Scholarly and peer-reviewed articles in many subjects.

Academic Search Premier - This is a multidisciplinary database that covers many fields, including the humanities.

Citing your sources is an extremely important part of the research process. Citation gives intellectual credit where it is due, and demonstrates that the author acknowledges the origins of their ideas.

This guide will give you concrete examples for all types of MLA in-text and Works Cited citations. Many databases also provide citation tools for various styles so you can simply cut and paste the information into your Works Cited page.

What just as important as format, though, is the purpose of citation. Simply dropping a quotation from a source into your paper is not generally considered good research. The best use of quotations is to support the central argument of the paper by illustrating a point, providing an example, or laying the foundation for the author's case. Use of quotations should demonstrate synthesis and integration - that the author has reviewed the pertinent literature in the field and used it to formulate their own arguments and opinions.