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University of Utah Library Guides

LEAP with Dr. White and Dale Larsen: Literature


History -and how to work the angle

The great writers (and artists, performers and so on) are known for their ability to share what we have in common with each other (among things).  Doing this across the huge barriers of time, different cultural or historical experiences, etc. separate them even further from the common writers -and people like to comment and analyze ideas like this; a lot!  The following databases are some of the best at looking at things like literature analysis where you'll find such ideas as "hemingway and fishing", "black-boy and kittens", "Shelley and Frankenstein and fire".  The articles you'll find will be written by scholars and professors like yours -who live and breathe stuff like this and are themselves leaders in their field (very scholarly!).

Project Muse
MLA Bibliography
Literature Resource Center


Literary Reference Center (search author's name -then use facet source types and select only biographies)


Assignment Reference

Mary Shelley and Frankenstein
What do the various natural settings in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein reveal about character? 

How does Shelley use images associated with light and/or fire to “illuminate” her central theme(s) in Frankenstein

Can (and perhaps should) Frankenstein be read as a novel that speaks to feminist concerns? 


Robert Louis Stevenson and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
How do you view the relationship between good and evil that is explored in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

How might Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde be read as a work that probes Victorian anxieties?

How does the London setting contribute to theme (or themes) in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Explore the connection(s) between Mr. Hyde and vampire folklore.     


Richard Wright and Black Boy
In Black Boy, how does Richard Wright use hunger (and possibly thirst) as a recurring motif that serves to develop character?

In Black Boy, what important facets of Richard’s character emerge in the early childhood kitten-killing episode? 

By focusing on a few (two or three) chosen moments in Black Boy, explore Richard’s relationship to language.

In Black Boy, what do Shorty’s antics teach us about racial relations between whites and blacks in the Jim Crow South?  


Sylvia Beach and George Antheil.

     Paris in the Twenties and Thirties. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983. 

Marriott Library Eccles Library Quinney Law Library