How do I find reception studies?

The Library is Ready to Help During COVID-19

Get the latest information about the current status of Library services. Learn more.

Look for

• articles
• scholarly articles
• books or book reviews
• prefaces, introductions, footnotes, endnotes, commentaries, appendices, etc.  in subsequent editions of an author's work
• indications of which works were republished when

Use

• indexes for finding criticism
• Articles on reception
• Track scholarly reception (limit a search to specific dates) 
• indexes of historic periodicals
• bibliographies -- a powerful tool, often necessary for locating early writing in particular
• newspapers, journals and books of the time and over time

For example :

Alice Munro : an Annotated Bibliography of Works and Criticism.

The Critical response to John Cheever.

Samuel Beckett in Context.

Key terms to use in searching indices such as the MLA Bibliography for articles on reception are "reception," "reputation," or "appreciation."

Subject terms in the catalog or WorldCat are "appreciation," or "influence."

For example :

Cervantes in Seventeenth-century England : the Tapestry Turned

Shakespeare and his Critics.

Use to trace reception over time.