Skip to main content

French Literature Guide Ask Us

Guide Sections

Reference Sources

 

When researching a new topic it is often necessary to get an overview, explanations of unfamiliar terms, or brief factual information. The print and electronic resources listed below include selected reference materials (dictionaries, encyclopaedias, handbooks, guides, and standards) for the field of French Literature. To find additional reference materials, check UNB WorldCat or our Reference Materials database.

Key Resources

  • Le Grand Robert de la langue française
    The electronic version of the Grand Robert de la langue française includes all 6 volumes of the most current edition.
  • Literature criticism online
    Provides Online access to the content of the following reference works on literature: Twentieth-century literary criticism, Nineteenth-century literature criticism, Literature criticism 1400-1800, Shakespeare criticism, Contemporary literary criticism, and Children's literature review.
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online (DLB Online)
    Provides more than 16,000 biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, andcareers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genres.Comprised of the award-winning Dictionary of Literary Biography series, which over its30-year history has been dedicated to making literature and its creators betterunderstood and more accessible to students and interested readers, DLB Complete Onlineprovides reliable information in an easily comprehensible format while placing writersin the larger perspective of literary history. Specifically, DLB Complete Onlineincludes the DLB main series, the DLB Documentary Series, and the DLB Yearbook Series -the latter two of which have never been electronically available. Additionally, DLBComplete Online will include the extremely valuable images from the above DLB series -again, content that has never been available online.
  • The new Oxford companion to literature in French [HIL-REF, HWK-REF PQ41 .N48 1995 ]

    Rabelais and Montaigne, Moliere and Racine, Stendhal and Proust--the literature of France boasts a long and glorious tradition. In The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French, readers will have at their fingertips a trusted guide to this rich literary heritage.Written by an international team of experts, the Companion's 3,000 entries capture ten centuries of work produced in France and, more recently, in other French-speaking countries around the world. The coverage they provide is superb. The volume highlights not only poets, novelists, and dramatists, but also historians, scientists, statesmen, and philosophers--providing a sweeping tour of French culture. Here readers will find lengthy articles on the giants of French letters, from Voltaire, Flaubert, and Balzac, to Valery, Cocteau, and Sartre. Among the new features of the Companion are substantial essays that reflect the latest scholarship on topics such as literary movements and genres; historical subjects such as chivalry or Occupation and Resistance in wartime France; intellectual movements from Scholasticism to Feminism; linguistic topics; coverage of the sciences; and the arts and media, including opera, cinema, and journalism. There is generous coverage of painters such as Degas and Delacroix, and composers such as Meyerbeer and Debussy. Scientists and philosophers also appear in thse pages (ranging from Poincare and Cuvier to Descartes, Pascal, and Rousseau). There is even an entertaining entry that cites 100 well-known quotations from French literature. Finally, the contributors have approached the literature of France in the widest terms possible, challenging the traditional canon as they examine everything from strip cartoons and pamphlets. Adventurous and wide ranging, the New Companion is more than a simple revision of the original work.Whether you are interested in Condillac or Condorcet, Lamartine or Lamarck, Madame de Stael or Madame Deficit (Marie-Antoinette), The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French provides informed and engaging coverage of the vast literary tradition of France. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

  • Dictionnaire de la litterature francaise et francophone [HIL-REF PQ41 .D526 1987 vols. 1-3]
  • Dictionary of modern French literature : from the age of reason through realism [HIL-REF PQ41 .D65 1986]
  • Dictionnaire des litteratures de langue francaise [HIL-REF PQ41 .B4 1984 vols. 1-3]
  • Guide to French Literature : 1789 to the Present [HIL-REF PQ146 .L48 1992]
  • Guide to French Literature : Beginnings to 1789 [HIL-REF PQ146 .L46 1994]

Additional Resources

  • Contemporary authors [HIL-REF CT220 .C63]

    "A bio-bibliographical guide to current authors and their works."

  • The Canadian encyclopedia
    Free online encyclopedia, containing the full text of the print Canadian Encyclopedia, "the most comprehensive source of information on all things Canadian." Includes the full text of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada.
  • Dictionary of Canadian biography online / Dictionnaire biographique du Canada en ligne
    The Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada provides detailed biographies of important figures in Canadian history from the year 1000 to 1930. This free online resource is produced by Library and Archives Canada, in partnership with Universite Laval and the University of Toronto, and reproduces the full contents of the print Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada.

 


Last modified on March 19, 2024 03:21