Best of the Web: Arts & Humanities » Literature & Linguistics

This site is divided into ten "books", each of which in turn is divided into "chapters." Categories include: Shakespeare's life The stage Society History and politics The background of ideas The drama Literature, art, and music Some plays explored Reference and indexes.

"These works are studies of the stage texts used in various seventeenth-century performances of Shakespeare's plays. G. Blakemore Evans has identified the different manuscript hands that annotate the prompt-books and compared the cuttings with other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Shakespearean stage texts. Thus, the collection provides an opportunity to examine Shakespearean performance traditions and innovations."

"Sisters in Crime is an international organization of writers, readers, booksellers, librarians, agents, editors, reviewers and teachers interested in promoting the work of women mystery writers."

Guide to English literature of the Renaissance, including relevant links.

Features fiction, poetry, interviews, reviews, art and photography.

Site features a hypertext version of "Snow White" which can connect to 36 alternative editions a series of illustrations excerpts on the context of fairy tales and issues in their study selected links and a bibliography.

An overview of structuralism.

"Launched in April 2000, to record the voices of South Asian authors for the Library of Congress' Archive of Recorded World Literature, the project has captured the readings of prominent South Asian poets, novelists, and playwrights. The authors recorded so far represent more than fifteen of the languages of India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh."

A growing, Russian-language database focussing on twentieth-century Russian Literature. Features a bibliographic database of journals from the 1920s, and poetical works from 1900-1955.

Sponsered by Rutgers University, this site offers searchable transcribed texts of the March-August 1711 issues off the famous magazine of Addison and Steele.

A hypertext edition.

Quarterly online literary journal of short stories and essays, based in New York.

Site dedicated to crime, mystery, and fantastic fiction. Features bibliographies, reviews, author profiles, in addition to News, Views, Events, Interviews, Awards.

" The goal of the TEAMS Middle English text series is to make available to teachers and students texts which occupy an important place in the literary and cultural canon but which have not been readily available in student editions." Contains the full texts of numerous lyrics, poems, and tales, including notes, translations, and an introduction.

This site from the Universitat Innsbruck in Austria contains a database with records of more than 6,000 German historical novels. In German or English.

Publishes peer-reviewed editions of early Shakespearean texts. The site also contains an excellent online textbook, Shakespeare's Life and Times by Michael Best, developing sections on Shakespeare in performance, supporting reference materials, and a good page of links to diverse Shakespeare and Renaissance sites.

Website features current reviews, special features, and a searchable database from 1980.

A rapidly expanding Digital Library from Tufts with a plentiful collection of Greek playtexts and other classical resources. The site also contains full-text versions of Christopher Marlowe's work, an edition of Shakespeare's First Folio, and source material on the history and founding of London. Atlases identify places mentioned in the collection of online texts.

Offshoot of McSweeney's, the quarterly print publication. Browsable archive going back to 1998.

A quasi-monthly electronic publication of poetry and poetics, literature, art, and criticism.

Features almost 6000 links to science fiction web resources.

An undergraduate site "designed to help you develop strategies for reading and understanding plays, as well as to find ideas and develop them in writing."

Provides resources about women artists and writers of color. It contains biographical and critical analysis, pedagogical information, and histories of translation.

"The Hyper-Concordance displays two pull-down boxes. The user can first choose one of a selection of authors from the box and then one from a list of the author's works. There are four limiting options displayed before searching: case sensitive, non-alphabet character sensitive, head length and tail length. The searcher can also ascertain the book's total word count and vocabulary distribution by searching without a query."

Literature, history, and culture in the age of Victoria, covering the period 1830-1901.

Established in 1995,this site contains a variety of work, including poetry, travel accounts, and political tracts.

"A national journal of literature and discussion." More than a decade of back issues available free online.

Extensive portal to literature links in English.

Contemporary literary arts site containing selections from chapbooks and literary journals.

Find genre fiction websites, book reviews, booklists and discussion guides. Maintained by the Morton Grove Public Library.

"A project which aims to link research and teaching by producing scholarly but accessible electronic editions as an on-line learning resource. Its website offers an anthology of edited Middle English lyrics (concentrating particularly on the 'Harley Lyrics'), translations of some longer Middle English works, and background resources for use in teaching."

Describes the elements of a story, including plot, point of view, characters, setting, and theme, using as an example A Jury of Her Peers, by Susan Glaspell.

A web page created by members of the Fall, 1995 Yale American Studies Seminar, "Wilderness and the American Imagination."

Site devoted to the history of children's book illustrationand the role women played.

Companion to a course at the University of Evansville features links to interviews and other information concerning a dozen women authors in the field.

An e-journal featuring critical articles, book reviews, interviews, poetry and fiction, and link collections.

Tne online magazine for international literature.

Interviews with contemporary authors.

Guide to quality theatre and drama resources on the web. Links to international online journals, museums, theatre companies, and collections of theatre images.