This guide is intended to introduce you to some strategies and resources for comparative literature research.
There are many similarities between research for comparative literature and other kinds of literary research, so you may also want to look into our guide to literatures in English.
Books are an essential resource for research in literature, because they are:
Notice you don't have to read the whole book!
Books are also a good resource for historical background research.
You can use subject headings in either of these resources:
to find books if you already know how they are described (that is, what their subject headings are). This will give you a list of things that books are about.
Subject headings are specific phrases that are consistent throughout the catalog. This can make it tricky to guess what the best subject heading will be, but there are some specific patterns that can help you. The following things are often subject headings:
Since comparative literature is quite interdisciplinary, you may find yourself consulting books about literary criticism, history, philosophy, or the social sciences. When you are searching, it is useful to think about what kinds of books you would find most helpful.
This is a very effective strategy for literature, because all the books on an author are usually shelved together.
Reference books are on level 3, while most other books are on level 5.
Most of the books on literature are organized by language family; literatures of the Romance languages are in PQ, the Germanic languages are in under PT, and so forth. Because the Library of Congress classification was developed in the United States, British literature and American literature have their own classes (PR and PS, respectively).
This list from the Library of Congress provides more information.
The library also holds some books on literature generally, and on specific genres. For instance: