4. Find Sources

Now you're ready to find sources for your project. Use the recommended resources below to search for useful information. Try to find sources that provide evidence to support your thesis or main idea. If you're having trouble, ask a librarian for help!

Literary Criticism

The following databases have lots of sources for poetry criticism. Begin your search by entering the name of the poem. If there are a lot of results, you can add the word "and," and then the theme you are researching.

If you are researching other works of literature, like Ovid's Metamorphoses, that the Romantic poets alluded to, these are good resources for that as well.

Gale Literature
Gale Literature allows you to search all of Gale’s literary databases and literature eBook titles in one database.
EBSCO Literature Databases
Search 2 EBSCO literary databases at once: Literary Reference Source and Academic Search Premier. Proxy Bypass
Bloom's Literature
Writings of Harold Bloom as well as other critics. Features author biographies, overviews, synopses, analyses and literary criticism of thousands of works from novels to poetry to plays, video segments, in-depth full-text entries on literary topics and themes and a literary timeline. Proxy Bypass

Biographical Information

If you are looking for biographical information about a poet or historical figure, this source is a good place to start for that information.

Gale in Context: Biography
Look up information on specific people. Find biographical essays, magazine/newspaper/journal articles, images and websites for people.

Historical Sources

If you are looking for the historical context of a poem, try these resources!

Gale in Context: World History
Full-text articles from leading scholarly publications, primary sources, images, maps and charts.
Modern World History
A comprehensive look at world history including art, music, literature, politics and other aspects of culture from the mid-15th century to current times including United States. Thousands of subject entries, biographies, images, videos and slideshows, maps and graphs, primary sources, and timelines combine to provide a detailed and comparative view of the people, places, events, and ideas that have defined modern world history and culture.

Recommended Books

Romantic Poetry by Angela Esterhammer (Editor)
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9027297762
Publication Date: 2002-06-04
A collection of essays on the influences and interrelations among Romantic movements throughout Europe and the Americas.
English Romantic Poetry by Harold Bloom (Editor)
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1438114958
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
This volume provides a critical overview on the poets who defined the English Romantic period. Specific topics such as the forms and characteristics of English Romantic poetry are addressed.
Reading Romantic Poetry by Fiona Stafford
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1280677155
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
introduces the major themes and preoccupations, and the key poems and players of a period convulsed by revolution, prolonged warfare and political crisis.
The Cambridge Introduction to British Romantic Poetry by Michael Ferber
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1280663863
Publication Date: 2012-06-01
This book guides the new reader through the Romantic writers, with each chapter explaining the history and development of a genre or explaining the context for the poetry, with a wealth of practical examples.
Science and Sensation in Romantic Poetry. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism by Noel Jackson
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1281254622
Publication Date: 2008-08-29
Explores the connection between Romantic poets and their interest in perception and the senses.
Literature and the Growth of British Nationalism: The influence of romantic poetry and Bardic criticism by Francesco Crocco
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1476616000
Publication Date: 2014-01-24
Many Romantic poets were held up as "national bards" to advance British nationalism, even as the poets themselves opposed this agenda.
Romantic Atheism: Poetry and Freethought, 1780-1830 by Martin Priestman
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1280158875
Publication Date: 2000-01-01
explores the links between English Romantic poetry and the first burst of outspoken atheism in Britain from the 1780s onwards.

Anna Letitia Barbauld by William McCarthy (Editor); Olivia Murphy (Editor)
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1611487129
Publication Date: 2015-12-16
Charlotte Smith by Carol Fry
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0805770461
Publication Date: 1996-10-18
Eternity's Sunrise by Leo Damrosch
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0300216297
Publication Date: 2015-10-28
A biography of William Blake
The Life of William Wordsworth by Thomas Lockwood
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1118604954
Publication Date: 2014-03-07
Lives of the Dead Poets by Karen Swann
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0823284182
Publication Date: 2019-04-02
Biographical information on John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Mary Shelley by Anne K. Mellor
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1136609334
Publication Date: 2012-08-06
Fantasy, Forgery, and the Byron Legend by James Soderholm
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0813158958
Publication Date: 2014-10-17

Science and Sensation in Romantic Poetry. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism by Noel Jackson
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1281254622
Publication Date: 2008-08-29
Combines close readings of poems by Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, and Keats with interdisciplinary research into the history of the human sciences
Reforming Ideas in Britain: politics and language in the shadow of the French Revolution, 1789-1815 by Mark Philp
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1316648494
Publication Date: 2017-03-16
A collection of essays that provide a view of Britain's political thought and movements during the 1790s and beyond.
Five Long Winters: The trials of British Romanticism by John Bugg
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0804787301
Publication Date: 2013-12-01
Discusses the ways Romantic writers responded to oppression in society by the British Government starting in the 1790s
Intellectual Politics and Cultural Conflict in the Romantic Period by Alex Benchimol
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1317115031
Publication Date: 2016-05-23
Examines the politics and social criticism of the Romantic period.
Women Writers and the English Nation in The 1790s: romantic belongings by Angela Keane
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0511049927
Publication Date: 2001-01-25
Addresses the ways that female Romantic writers engaged with the role of women in the English literary tradition.
Romantic Antiquity: Rome in the British imagination, 1789-1832 by Jonathan Sachs
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0195376129
Publication Date: 2009-12-21
Examines how Romantic writers incorporated the legacy of ancient Rome into their literature.

Search for Books & eBooks

Use the search box below to search the SCC Library Catalog for physical books (in one of our library locations) and eBooks. You can also open the Library Catalog or use the Advanced Search for more search options.