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THEATRE 471: Fundamentals of acting in classical texts.

Finding resources for researching and preparing to perform classic texts

Text Databases

 

Text databases can contain books, articles, dissertations, plays and other primary sources. The options below may especially be of use, but you can find many more on our Databases A-to-Z page. Some are "full text," meaning they provide access to the entire article, book, etc., while other are indexes of larger collections and require you to look elsewhere for the full text.

  • Academic Search -- Interdisciplinary database that has a little bit about a lot of subjects - some are full text, others are not.
  • Early English Books Online -- digitized early modern books in English
  • Historical Abstracts -- Historical Abstracts has article summaries for many journals, books and dissertations on the history of the world from 1450 to the present.
  • Literary Reference Center -- information on thousands of authors and their works across literary disciplines and timeframes, from books and monographs, literary encyclopedias and reference works, journals, and other unique sources.
  • Gale Literature Criticism -- large collection of literary criticism on a variety of genres and periods.
  • MLA International Bibliography indexes international scholarly materials, including over many journals, books, etc. on literature and related topics.
  • Project MUSE -- Full-text journals on a variety of subjects.

Image Databases

In addition to text databases, UWM subscribes to a lot of resources that have what would be considered primary source visual information.

  • ArtStor - a digital library of over 1 million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes.
  • Early English Books Online - digitized early modern books in English.
  • Oxford Art Online -- Includes image partnerships with ARTstor, the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Images for College Teaching, Art Resource, Artists Rights Society and numerous international art galleries and artists. Use this to find artwork by visual artists from the same time as the playwrites you're working on.