French Language and Literature: French 306: From Romanticism to Postmodernism

• Familiarize yourself with your topic before beginning your research. This will save time later.
• Know the parameters of the reference tool(s) you are searching. Certain reference works only cover particular time periods or may not be comprehensive in scope. For instance, most online databases begin their coverage in the 1980s.
• Make the fullest use possible of reference tools, including bibliographies which can lead you to other sources.
• Read the source carefully. Note organizational differences between tools.
• Be creative. Try alternative and related headings to locate the information you need.

• Familiarize yourself with your topic.  Be sure you are able to answer the following questions before beginning your research:
  • Who?
  • What?
  • Where?
  • When?
  • Why?
  • How?
• Gather background information about your topic using reference sources.
  • Reference books provide important information on a topic, include specific details, and point to other useful sources of information.  They point the way into the core literature of a topic contained in books, journals, reports, and many other types of publications. They can also summarize, digest, or review the literature on a topic in ways that save you time and energy.
• Knowing the reference sources in your discipline can increase the efficiency of your searches by enabling you to better focus your questions. 
• Be sure to evaluate the kinds of sources you are using.  Review your print sources and pay special attention to Internet sources.
• Read the source carefully.  Note organizational differences between tools. Not all works are comprehensive in scope.
• Be creative. Try alternative and related headings to locate the information you need. If your initial search is so broad that you have too many sources, then narrow your search. If your search brings back too few sources, then broaden the search, using more general terms.

Harvard Guide to Using Sources: The Harvard Guide to Using Sources is an easily accessible introductory guide to use of sources. It includes tips for students on finding, choosing, and integrating reliable sources into academic writing. The Guide provides examples of MLA, APA, and Chicago styles of citation and includes information on avoiding plagiarism.

• French writers are usually listed under their family name. 
  • e.g. Gouges, Olympe de
• Be aware of variant spellings.
• Be aware that early modern authors may be listed by their title. Older resources may not cross reference these variant listings.
  • e.g.  Charrière, Madame de or Charrière, Isabelle
• A title is listed without an article if the article appears at the beginning of the title.
  • e.g.  Princesse de Clèves
• Certain individual titles may not be available in separate editions. Check for œuvres which may contain the specific work.
• The subject heading search in the classic catalog is based upon a thesaurus of terms developed by the Library of Congress.
  • e.g.  French fiction - 17th century-History and Criticism
• Database subject searching is often keyword based so it creates a more broad-based search. The entire bibliographic entry is searched and not just the subject field.

Ecocriticism

Is interdisciplinary in nature, and analyzes texts according to environmental concerns, as well as the treatment of nature.

Ethnic Studies

When researching topics related to ethnicity, looks for sources on cultural studies especially ones that are comparative in nature. 

Feminist 

Purdue University Online Writing Lab

Select sources which enable the reader to examine patterns of thought, behavior, roles, and power between the sexes. 

Gender/Queer

Explores issues of power and sexuality among marginalized populations in literature and culture.

Marxist

Marxist theory concerns oppression and similar issues especially among those less fortunate.

Moral Lens

Moral lens judges literary works according to moral instead of literary or formal standards.

Psychoanalytic

PEP Web Archive

A source to research archetypal criticism. Psychological lens concerns the authors unconscious thoughts as found in their literary works.

Access available to full text until three years before current date. PEP Web provides access to the PEP Web archive, which contains both books and journal articles. The book archive includes the full text of the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Freud's letters to his major collaborators and the full text of the major works by Wilfred Bion, Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott along with other major psychoanalytic authors. The journals in the archive presently include the full text many premier English-language journals in psychoanalysis. 

Race Theory

The Purdue source noted above identifies major theorists. Consider perceptions of race in the original work being studied. Look for resources that provide a broad overview of the time, place or society at large to explore context and gain insight on the issues. 

Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of sign processes where the sign is defined as communicating meeting. Signs can be characterized as iconic, symbolic, or as referential.

https://owl.purdue.edu/

MLA International Bibliography (Highly Recommended)

Description: Index to critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Proved access to citations from worldwide publications, including periodicals, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, bibliographies and also MLA Directory of Periodicals. 

JSTOR

Description: Full-text archive of scholarly publications, including ebooks, in mathematics, science, the arts and humanities, and the social sciences.

Art and Architecture Source

Description: Journals, books, and images covering fine arts, decorative and commercial art, architecture and architectural design.

Historical Abstracts with Full-text

Description: Historical Abstracts is an exceptional resource that covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more - essential for libraries supporting upper-division and graduate research. This authoritative database provides indexing of more than 1,700 academic historical journals in over 40 languages back to 1955. History and social science researchers have used Historical Abstracts to discover significant and groundbreaking work for more than 50 years.

Humanities International Index This link opens in a new window

Description: Index to journals, books and other sources in the humanities, produced by Whitson Publishing.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online

Description: Primary sources from the nineteenth century including monographs, newspapers, and pamphlets.

Project Muse

Description: Journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics, published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Periodicals Archive Online

Description:  Archive of journals published in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

Philosophers Index

Description: Indexes to books and journals covering philosophy, including ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, and philosophy related to specific fields, such as law, education, and science.

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1. General

   1. Artistic relations : literature and the visual arts in nineteenth-century France

      Location:  Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:  NX549.A1 A78 1994

   2. Circumstances : chance in the literary text

      Author:  Bell, David F.

      Links:  Full text available from eBook Academic Collection - North America   https://libezproxy.syr.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=e000xna&AN=508

   3. Eavesdropping in the novel from Austen to Proust

      Author:  Gaylin, Ann Elizabeth.

      Links:  Full text available from eBook Academic Collection - North America   https://libezproxy.syr.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=e000xna&AN=112679

   4. French literature : a cultural history

      Author:   Finch, Alison

      Location   Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:  PQ142 .F56 2010

   5. Genius in France : an idea and its uses

      Author:  Jefferson, Ann

      Links:  Full text available from JSTOR eBooks: EBA Title List  https://libezproxy.syr.edu/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctt1287kkg

   6. The nineteenth-century French short story : masterpieces in miniature

      Author:  Pasco, Allan H.

      Links:  Full text available from Taylor & Francis EBA  https://libezproxy.syr.edu/login?url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429319006

   7. The Cambridge history of literary criticism

      Location        Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:      PN86 .C27 1989

2. Romanticism 

   1. Persuasion in the French personal novel : studies of Chateaubriand, Constant, Balzac, Nerval, and Fromentin

      Author:         Bales, Richard.

      Location        Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:      PQ651 .B35 1997

   2. Sick heroes : French society and literature in the romantic age, 1750-1850

      Author:         Pasco, Allan H.

      Location        Bird-3rd Floor
      Call Number:      DC33.5 .P37 1997

   3. Rendering French realism

      Author:         Schehr, Lawrence R.

      Location        Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:      PQ653 .S26 1997

   4. Imagery and ideology : fiction and painting in nineteenth-century France

      Author:         Berg, William J.

      Location        Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:      PQ653 .B39 2007

   5. The French romantics

      Location        Bird-3rd Floor
      Call Number:      DC33.5 .F73 1984

3. Realism

   1. Empathy and the strangeness of fiction : readings in French realism

      Author:  Scott, Maria C.

      Location   Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:   PQ145.1.E47 S36 2020

   2. The Monster in the mirror : studies in nineteenth-century realism 

      Location:  Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:  PN3499 .M64

   3. The realist author and sympathetic imagination 
      Author:  Paraschas, Sotirios,

      Links:  Full text available from Taylor & Francis EBA   https://libezproxy.syr.edu/login?url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781351191876

4. Naturalism

   1. Les Cahiers naturalistes.

      Format:  Periodical

      Location  SU Libraries Facility            
      Call Number:  PQ2526 .C345

   2. Les Cahiers naturalistes.

      Format:  Periodical

      Links:   Full text available from Gallica Periodicals: 1955 to 2010     https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb343484129/date

5. Surrealism

   1. An anthology of French surrealist poetry

      Author:  Matthews, J. H.

      Location   Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:  PQ1184 .M34 1967

   2. An introduction to surrealism

      Author:   Matthews, J. H.

      Location   Bird-2nd Floor
      Call Number:   BH301.S75 M3

   3. Eight painters : the surrealist context

      Author:   Matthews, J. H.

      Location   Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:   ND196.S8 M37 1982

   4. Languages of surrealism

      Author:   Matthews, J. H.

      Location   Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:   NX600.S9 M37 1986

   5. Surrealism and film

      Author:   Matthews, J. H.

      Location   Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:  PN1995.9.S85 M3

   6. Surrealism and the novel

      Author:   Matthews, J. H.

      Location   Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:  PQ671 .M38

   7. The surrealist mind 

      Author:   Matthews, J. H.

      Location   Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:  NX456.5.S8 M38 1991

   8. The imagery of surrealism

      Author:   Matthews, J. H.

      Location   Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:   NX600.S9 M37

6. Existentialism

   1. French existentialist fiction : changing moral perspectives

      Author:  Keefe, Terry.

      Location    Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:   PQ673 .K4 1986

   2. The intellectual hero; studies in the French novel, 1880-1955.

      Author:         Brombert, Victor,

      Location        Warehouse - Use Service Request Forms on Libraries home page
      Call Number:      843.09 .B868I

   3. Existentialist tradition. European existentialism

      Links:   Full text available from Taylor & Francis EBA    https://libezproxy.syr.edu/login?url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781351311168

   4. Writing the mind : representing consciousness from Proust to the present

      Author:    Kemp, Simon

      Links:    Full text available from Taylor & Francis EBA      https://libezproxy.syr.edu/login?url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315196695

7. Structuralism

   1. Phenomenology, structuralism, semiology

      Location        Bird-2nd Floor
      Call Number:      B829.5 .P48 1976

8. Post Modern Nouveau Roman

   1. Un nouveau roman? : recherches et tradition, la critique étrangère

      Location:  Bird-5th Floor
      Call Number:   PQ671 .M382