Tools for Literary Analysis

TIPS: When searching for information on your artist, using the right words make all the difference: Here are some suggestions for finding commentary on contemporary artists: MUSIC, ROCK MUSIC, RAP MUSIC, LYRICS, ANALYSIS, COMMENTARY, INTERPRETATION, EXPLICATION, MEANING, SONG ANALYSIS, SONG MEANINGS.

Subscription Databases

Reference sources, biographies, magazine, newspapers, journals, periodicals, primary sources, literary criticism (*MLA Citation)

Database Trials on MOHIGH.COM - http://trials.gale.com/csla/

        *Student Resource Center

        *InfoTrac OneFile

        *Opposing Viewpoints 

        Literature Resource Center (includes Literary Criticism)

Also: EBSCOhost (Magill on Literature and Magill on Authors) http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?authtype=uid&user=rancho&password=rancho

San Bernardino County Library Online Datbases (Library ID # Required)

Ontario City Library Online Resources

Ontario City Library Online Resources

Lyric Sites

SongMeanings.net - http://www.songmeanings.net/ (Slow to load) Song interpretations/commentary provided by listener comments.

 

LyricInterpretations.com - http://www.lyricinterpretations.com/ Interpretations of your favorite songs.

 

Lyrical Interpretations - http://www.lyrical-interpretations.com/index.php

There are currently 1832 songs and 1818 interpretations in the database.

http://www.lyrics.com/ http://www.lyricsplanet.com/

http://lyrics.astraweb.com/

A-Z Lyrics Universe - http://www.azlyrics.com/ A lyrics database

 

Lyrics on Demand - http://www.lyricsondemand.com/ A lyrics database

 

Robert Christgau's Homepage - http://www.robertchristgau.com/ Includes writing, mostly about music, mostly rock and roll, all from one music critic: Robert Christgau. This writing comes in two sizes: short (essays, articles, reviews, and lists) and very short (the one-paragraph Consumer Guides).

 

Pitchfork Media http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/ new, reviews and features on music.

 

RollingStone.com - http://rollingstone.com

 

VIBE Magazine - http://www.vibe.com/

 

SPIN Magazine - http://www.spin.com/

 

Rock Wisdom - http://rockwisdom.com/ An Online Reference Book to over 13,000 song quotes. Search by subject or artist. A Rock and Roll trivia buff has created this amazing site containing insightful quotes from all type of contemporary rock music (other genres as well). Use this to see how your artist address a certain subject.

 

Song Facts - http://www.songfacts.com/ A searchable database of song information compiled by radio professionals, music enthusiasts, and visitors to this web site. We provide the album, year the song was released, highest US and UK chart position, and "Songfacts" about each song. The "Songfacts" are interesting tidbits like what the song is about, who wrote it, and what makes it different. Songfacts is free

 

 

A Hotlist on Poetry - http://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/fil/pages/listpoetryms21.html

This list includes links to 29 poetry sites divided into the following categories: poetry databases by title and first line, author, subject/theme, date and famous poets.

 

The Academy of American Poets http://www.poets.org

This site contains information on 500+ biographies on current and historic poets, 1700+ poems, hundreds of essays and interviews about poetry, biographies of more.

 

Poetry Archives @ emule.com http://www.emule.com/poetry

This databse is searchable by first-line, author and poem title by key words using the search feature located on the top right corner of each page

 

Poet’s Corner http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/SubjIdx/life.html

One of the largest and oldest text resources on the web. The goal of this project is to create a user-friendly library of works that promotes browsing and exploring through a site that spans thousands of works by hundreds of authors covering thousands of years.

 

Lyrics World - http://www.ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/main_index/

This index contains links to all of the lyrics available at Lyrics World including all the songs found in "Top 40 Hits of 1930-1999", "#1 Songs of 1930-1999", "Top Singles by Decade" and "Artist Collections", and more. You can browse through the songs by title or by artist (group name or surname of artist).

 

Biography.com http://www.biography.com/ Over 25,000 Biographies

 

Representative Poetry Online http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/index.cfm

This site is run by the Library at the University of Toronto, Canada. It includes literary criticism

 

MLA Citations Sites

 

KnightCite http://calvin.edu/library/knightcite

 

Son of Citation Machine http://citationmachine.net