A (free) Encyclopedia of Literature

Main Page | 19th-Century Literary Criticism | 20th-Century Literary Criticism | About LiteraryHistory.com

Not that there is one. There should be one. It is shocking to me that still, in 2012, no individual or institution in the academic community has seen fit to publish a good, open-access encyclopedia of English and American literature. The discipline of philosophy has two online, open-access encyclopedias, both of which are outstanding: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Both publish articles on all the major philosophers and topics in philosophy. The articles are reliable, lengthy, signed, written by credentialed philosophy professors, and edited for grammar and clarity, and supervised by a general editor and area editors who are also specialists. You know what you're getting from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy--an account of the important figures in philosophy, with perspective on how important they were and why, written and edited in accordance with the highest professional standards. There is nothing like this in English and American literary studies. In nineteenth and twentieth century literature there are three relatively broad projects, but they only encompass poetry: the Modern American Poetry web site, general editor Cary Nelson, an outgrowth of her work as editor for the Anthology of Modern American Poetry for Oxford University Press, and the only one of the three where the material is uniformly signed and peer-reviewed; the Poetry Foundation web site from Poetry magazine, which presents articles on a large number of poets, mainly unsigned (a project presumably made possible by the $100 million contribution to Poetry magazine by a Lilly heiress in 2002); and the web site from the non-profit Academy of American Poets, which also covers a wide field of poets. There is nothing as extensive for fiction or drama that is freely available to the public, or any general, open-access reference source for literature in English. The only web site available to the general public that is inclusive of literature in all periods and of high caliber is the Literary Encyclopedia, a subscription-based UK publication. Under these circumstances it's not surprising that Wikipedia has become the leading authority for literary research online.

The absence of a professionally written open-access encyclopedia of literature is particularly deplorable when you consider how widespread the interest is in literature compared to other academic subjects. Literature has an appeal to people who simply like to read and want to know more about literary figures and their works, whether English was their major in college or not. There is probably a bigger readership for reference articles on fiction, poetry, and drama than any other academic subject, other than maybe film. And there is probably a bigger audience for English and American literature than any other language, since English is now the second language for the world. American foundations who are throwing money at highly specialized digitization projects, consider directing some of your funding towards an open-access, general encyclopedia of American literature! Major universities who want to enhance public awareness of your English department, what about publishing an open-access encyclopedia of literature at your dot edu web site (and keep it up forever, and never change the url)! Professors who wish to further your reputations as authorities, why not write an introductory article on your specialization for an open-access encyclopedia of literature? The technology is not hard, anyone can publish on the internet; the scholarship (and editorial supervision) is the hard part.

Main Page | 19th-Century Literary Criticism | 20th-Century Literary Criticism | About LiteraryHistory.com

We appreciate your comments. Please send email to jpridmore at literaryhistory.com