For those select and enlightened individuals who have set forth on the path of virtue, i.e. enrolled on an English degree and disavowed all things numbered and overly factual, I must extend my heartiest congratulations. Welcome my friends to the land of the free, home of the wild. It pretty much rocks.

Well, apart from one minor detail: there’s a lot of reading. Slightly. As in, minimum four books a week, slightly. Well if you’re up for it that’s all good, but for those who are either too busy, lazy or don’t want to kill the subject with the workload, there is an alternative*.

As a veteran of the degree, below is a list of just a few of my favourite dosser’s websites that saw me through many a seminar

Project Gutenberg
www.gutenberg.org
The poor student’s bible, Project Gutenberg is the online database of free e-books for cultural texts out of copyright [public domain books]. Here you’ll be able to download literature free and fast, including most classical works. Very easy to use, with a simple search engine. An absolute godsend for those of us who can’t afford to buy a shipload of books but attend a university that, in its immense wisdom, reckons one copy of each book is sufficient to cater for its hundreds of literature students.

The Victorian Web
www.victorianweb.org
As the name suggests, brilliant for all things Victorian. And guilt reduction too – I’ve had a lecturer recommend it, so it’s not completely clear of the academic realm either! Good place for summaries, critical commentaries, author biographies and a host of other useful stuff. Came in really handy for both A-levels and university.

Google
www.google.co.uk
Professor Google needs no introduction. In a word: essential. Search out everything from critics to core texts at the click of a mouse and enjoy. Especially good for searching out quotes – Google Books has many a book scanned, and can locate things in a second.

Squashed Philosophers
btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed
As great for information as for amusement. This legend of a website has summaries of most major classical works, in modern English. Plenty of amusement distilled throughout too. For Example: “The Very Squashed Version of the First Philosophers: Diogenes of Sinope “The Cynic” (c355BC): Known as ‘the dog’, he lived in a barrel, and was unbelievably rude to everyone, including Alexander the Great.” Glyn Hughes is sheer genius.

Spark Notes
www.sparknotes.com
Yes, I know they’re American and can’t spell, but these people are great for plot synopses and short commentaries on texts, authors and characters. A brilliant place for introductory knowledge, especially for Shakespeare with its ‘No Fear Shakespeare’ page of original Shakespearean works with modern English translations. Bit limited with the range of wider authors and books, but I guess you can’t have everything.

Wikipedia
www.wikipedia.org
The founders of this site need a Nobel Prize. Seriously. These guys have an entry for ‘Anything Under The Sun’. So you can only imagine what they have for famous texts, or authors like Dickens and whatnot. Very informative and often detailed, though always bear in mind the question of reliability and interpretation.

Dictionary.com
www.dictionary.com
The OED Online can go boil its pompous head. Dictionary.com is reliable, easy to use and accessible, with clear layout, short and sweet definitions, phonetic spellings and with recorded pronunciations you can play out. It also has a thesaurus and encyclopaedia on the same site. OED is a more ‘academic’ site, of course, so use that if you’re out to quote definitions and cite sources in essays.

Routeledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online
www.rep.routledge.com
Finally, an academic source [for philosophy, no less] that makes it all perfectly clear and understandable. Literary theory is a tricky subject, but this site makes it all accessible with minimal jargon and clear language. And it’s a trusted academic source, so entirely citeable. You’ll need your Athens password to access it, though.

But I’m sure you’re all responsible students who love the reading as much as the subject in general, so go for it and read the books themselves – pick your modules well and the reading lists will be well worth it!

*Bearing in mind you don’t entirely depend on these sites [and aren’t too bothered about getting the first, which you probably should be so don’t listen to me)

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 16:08 and is filed under Play Magazine, Print. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.