Facts On File, an imprint of Infobase Publishing, is pleased to announce that Bloom’s Literary Reference Online has just undergone a significant update—with a new video feature, a new dictionary tool, and more than 800 new pieces of criticism. Literature lovers can read about everything from Shakespeare to Asian-American literature and foreign works such as Love in the Time of Cholera.
New Features Include:
- New Pop-up Dictionary Tool – Students can now click on the “Dictionary” link located on the top of every page to be able to look up unfamiliar words within articles without needing to open a new browser window or go outside the database. The dictionary contains more than 34,000 entries with concise, informative definitions, as well as the pronunciation, etymology, and syllable breaks of the word. Many entries also include variant spellings as well as derived and inflected forms of the words. This new feature allows students and researchers to broaden their vocabulary and clarify their understanding of the text.
- New Videos – Twenty-four video segments have been added from an exclusive interview conducted with Harold Bloom. The segments cover a variety of works and authors from the Western literary canon—from William Shakespeare to Cormac McCarthy—to other topics, such as the importance of studying literature and how to determine the aesthetic merit of a work of literature. New videos include “Bloom on His Career as a Critic,” “Bloom on Sigmund Freud and William Shakespeare,” and “Bloom on Memorizing Poetry.”
- New Critical Essays – More than 800 new pieces of criticism have been added, including a selection of the finest classic criticism on the authors most commonly read in high school and college classes today. The essays place these authors in the context of their literary era and provide criticism that has proved over the years to be invaluable to readers and writers. In addition, new commentary has been added on Shakespeare’s greatest plays, many written by noted critics such as John Dryden and Samuel Johnson.
