Library : African American Literature: Databases

Databases

Here you can find electronic databases specifically catered to English Literature. You can find more in our A-Z List, and can also search much of their content using our LibrarySearch.

African-American Poetry This link opens in a new window
Poetry by African-Americans from the 18th and 19th centuries.
African-American History This link opens in a new window
Covering more than 500 years of the African-American experience, African-American History offers a fresh way to explore the full spectrum of African-American history and culture. Users can start their investigation of a topic with a video or slideshow overview, use the key content called out on the home page to find an entryway into the database, or dig deep into a subject or era through the Topic Centers. Read about key figures and events, examine famous speeches and other primary sources, and get context from the in-depth timelines. An important feature is the full cross-searchability across all the Infobase history databases for an even more comprehensive view of history.
Black Drama This link opens in a new window
Almost 1,700 full-text plays from the mid-1800s to the present by black playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries.
Twentieth Century African American Poetry This link opens in a new window
Poetry by major African-American poets of the 20th century.
Twentieth Century Drama This link opens in a new window
About 1,900 published plays from throughout the English-speaking world, covering the history of modern drama from the 1890s to the present day, alongside unpublished works by major writers and Pulitzer Prize winners. The collection's contents range from canonical authors such as George Bernard Shaw, Langston Hughes, Sean O'Casey, Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, Harold Pinter, Neil Simon, Tom Stoppard and Thornton Wilder, to off-Broadway experimentation and South African township theatre.
Gale Dictionary of Literary Biography This link opens in a new window
Gale Literature: Dictionary of Literary Biography provides comprehensive access to the series dedicated to making literature and its creators better understood and more accessible to students and interested readers while simultaneously satisfying the standards of librarians, teachers, and scholars. The series provides reliable information on authors and their works in an easy to understand, engaging format, while placing writers in the larger perspective of literary history. Dictionary of Literary Biography includes the main series, documentary, and yearbook volumes.
Gale Literary Index This link opens in a new window
Gale Literary Index is a master index to the major literature products published by Gale. It combines and cross-references author names, including pseudonyms and variant names, and listings for titles of works into one source.
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Access numerous literary resources in one search.
ProQuest Learning: Literature This link opens in a new window
Full-text works of poetry, prose and drama, and secondary sources such as author biographies, literary criticisms, essays, reviews and interviews.