Encyclopedias and Dictionaries of Literature

reference publications containing a systematized compilation of knowledge in the field of literary scholarship and information about the world of literature. They consist of biobib-liographical surveys of writers, the history of literatures, and the history of literary movements; entries about the content of works and the characteristics of literary personages; quotations, concepts, and terms from literary theory; and concepts from related fields—such as folklore, mythology, linguistics, book science, esthetics, theater, publicism, and journalism.

Encyclopedias and dictionaries of literature began with bibliographical reference books. Thus, the ancestor of these encyclopedias (those in the form of a dictionary of writers) is considered to be the catalog compiled by the Greek poet and grammarian Callimachus (third century B.C.) entitled Tables of Those Who Distinguished Themselves in All Fields of Knowledge, and of What They Wrote (originally known as the Catalog of the Library at Alexandria). The Tables served as a model for later compilers of reference works: Jerome (A.D. 340–420), author of On Illustrious Men, and Gennadius, bishop of Marseille (second half of the fifth century), who compiled the Book of Church Writers. A well-defined tradition of reference dictionaries culminated in the Byzantine Suda lexicon (tenth century), which incorporated material from earlier biobibliographical compilations and contained explanations of concepts and terms found in literary interpretation. The Suda lexicon is the basic source of information about ancient Greek and early Christian ecclesiastical literature. Latin biobibliographies are represented by Varro’s Imagines (Portraits), containing more than 700 biographical sketches. An extremely ancient handbook of literary works is Photius’ Myriobiblion (One Thousand Books, 857). The tradition of separate dictionaries of writers, scholars, and religious figures, which took shape in ancient Greece, Rome, and Byzantium, continued in Europe right up to the 19th century.

A new, particularly scientific method of organizing information, first observed in F. Bacon’s Novum organum (1620), served as a basis for the ramified systematization and categorization of the sciences and arts in the 17th and 18th centuries, making possible the creation, in the 18th century, of encyclopedias similar to modern ones. Among 18-century encyclopedias of literature, the one that retained its’ significance the longest was a specialized section of the Encyclopedia of the French enlighten-ers—the Systematic Encyclopedia … Grammar and Literature (Encyclopédie méthodique … Grammaire et littérature, vols. 1–3, Paris, 1782–86).

In the 19th and 20th centuries, along with universal encyclopedias of literature (of terms, writers, characters, and surveys of national literatures), specialized encyclopedias of literature also appeared, such as dictionaries of literary terms, dictionaries of individual national literatures or groups of literatures (usually biobibliographical dictionaries), dictionaries of the works of individual writers (Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante, Cervantes), dictionaries of literary characters (for example, F. N. Magill’s Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, New York-London, 1963), dictionaries of quotations (of which the most important is B. E. Stevenson’s Book of Quotations, Classical and Modern, London, 1934; 9th ed., London, 1958), and dictionaries of titles of works.

The most important universal encyclopedias of literature, dictionaries of terms, and encyclopedias devoted to the literature of a single country or specific period follow.

Also worthy of attention are Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend (M. Leach and J. Fried, eds.; vols. 1–2, New York, 1950), and especially S. Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances… (vols. 1–5 and 6 [Index], Blooming-ton, 1955–58).

Hungary. The publication of the multivolume Encyclopedia of World Literature (Világirodalmi lexikon, vols. 1–2—, Budapest, 1970–72—) is under way.

Netherlands. Dutch encyclopedias of literature are represented by the one-volume Encyclopedia of World Literature (Encyclopedie voor de Wereldliteratuur, Utrecht, 1954) by C. Buddingh and the Modern Encyclopedia of World Literature (Moderne Encyclopedie der Wereldliteratuur, vols. 1–7—, Ghent-Hilversum, 1963–72—).

Spain. Spanish encyclopedias of literature include a translated 12-volume version of Bompiani’s Italian dictionaries and Approach to a Dictionary of Literature (Ensayo de un diccionario de la literatura, vols. 1–3, 2nd ed., Madrid, 1953–56) by F. Sainz de Robles, of which the first volume deals with national literatures, schools, genres, and terms; the second with the writers of Spain and Latin America; and the third with foreign writers. The Illustrated Dictionary of Famous Sayings and Literary Quotations (Diccionario ilustrado de frases celebres y citas literarias, 2nd ed., Barcelona, 1952) by V. Vego is a universal dictionary of quotations.

National Spanish encyclopedias include the Enciclopedia de cultura española (vols. 1–5, Madrid, 1962–68), a multipart encyclopedia of culture, and Quien es quien en las letras españolas (Madrid, 1969), which covers 20th-century literature.

The national Italian encyclopedia of literature is the Dizionario enciclopedico della letteratura italiana (G. Petronio, ed.; vols. 1–6, Bari-Rome, 1966–70).

Latin America. Latin American regional and national encyclopedias of literature are represented by Diccionario de la literatura latinoamericana (Washington, 1958–63) and P. Or-gambide’s Enciclopedia de la literatura argentina (Buenos Aires, 1971).

France. Among French reference works of literature, G. Vapereau’s Universal Dictionary of Literatures (Dictionnaire universel des littératures, Paris, 1876; 2nd ed., Paris, 1884) is a fundamental work about national literatures, concepts, and men of letters. P. Van Tieghem’s Dictionary of Literatures (Dictionnaire des littératures, vols. 1–3, Paris, 1968) contains surveys of national literatures (including Oriental) and articles on writers, movements, and terms. There is also the 45-volume Universal Biographical Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Writers (Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, Paris-Leipzig, 1854–1961) and a translated version of the Italian dictionaries of V. Bompiani.

National French encyclopedias of literature are represented by G. Grente’s Dictionnaire des lettres françaises (vols. 1–5, Paris, 1951–64), covering the Middle Ages and the 16th to 18th centuries, Dictionnaire des auteurs français (Paris, 1961), and J. Malignon’s Dictionnaire des écrivains français (Paris, 1971).

Federal Republic of Germany. Among publications in the Federal Republic of Germany, information about national literatures, writers, and terms can be found in World Literature: Biographical, Historical-Literary, and Bibliographical Dictionary (Die Weltliteratur: Biographisches, literatur-historisches und bibliographisches Lexikon …, E. Frauwallner, H. Giebisch, and E. Heinzel, publishers; vols. 1–3, Vienna, 1951–54). There is also the two-volume Herder’s Lexicon of World Literature in the 20th Century (Herders Lexikon der Weltliteratur im 20. Jahrhundert, vols. 1–2, Freiburg, 1960–61). The 13-volume Guide to Novels (Der Romanführer, W. Olbrich, publisher; Stuttgart, 1950–64), covering German and (more selectively) all European and American literature, is a valuable reference work. The German-language Paulys Real-Encyclopadie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (G. Wissowa, publisher; Series I, fasc. vols. 1–47; Series II, fasc. vols. 1–18; Supplementary vols. 1–10; Stuttgart, 1893–1967) is a detailed encyclopedia of classical literature; a shorter version of it is Der kleine Paulys: Lexikon der Antike (vols. 1–3, Stuttgart, 1964–69).

National encyclopedias of literature of the Federal Republic of Germany include P. Merker and W. Stammler’s Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte (vols. 1–4, Berlin, 1925–31; 2nd ed., vols. 1–3, 1955–71) and W. Kosch’s Deutsches Literaturlexikon (3rd ed., vols. 1–3, Bern, 1966–71; a one-volume edition was published in 1963).

Other biobibliographical dictionaries for the countries of Western Europe and America may be found in the works of B. L. Kandel’, A. J. Walford, and R. B. Slocum (see below: References).

Socialist countries of Europe. In the socialist countries of Europe, the most important national biobibliographical dictionaries are as follows. In Bulgaria there is G. Konstantinov’s Bulgarski pisateli: Biografii, bibliografiia (2nd ed., Sofia, 1961) and in Hungary, M. Benedek’s Magyar irodalmi lexikon (vols. 1–3, Budapest, 1963–65).

In the German Democratic Republic, there is the Lexikon deutschsprachiger Schriftsteller von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (vols. 1–2, Leipzig, 1967–68). In Poland there are the Stownik wspótczesnych pisarzy polskich (vols. 1–4, Warsaw, 1963–66), G. Korbut’s Literatura polska od początków do wojny ś wiatowej (2nd ed., vols. 1–4, Warsaw, 1929–31), and Bibliografía literatury polskiej: Nowy Korbut (vols. 1–5, 7–9, 12–13, Warsaw[-Kraków], 1963–72 (more forthcoming).

In Rumania there is the Să cunoaştem scritorii patriei noastre (Bucharest, 1956); in Czechoslovakia, Slovník českých spisova-telů (R. Havel and J. Opelik, eds.; Prague, 1964); and in Yugoslavia, K. Ŝpoljar and M. Vanpotić’s Književni godišnjak: Pisci jugoslavenskih naroda (Zagreb, 1961), Jugoslovenski knjiž evni leksikon (Novi Sad, 1971), and Leksikon pisaca Jugoslavije (vols. 1—, Belgrade, 1972—).

The Short Encyclopedia of Literature is universal in scope, covering the history of literatures of countries, peoples, and epochs of the whole world from ancient times to the present day. (This is in fact the first, although summary, Marxist survey of world literature.) Its glossary has a considerably wider range than those of other universal encyclopedias of literature, mainly because of material on the little-studied literatures of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and a number of the peoples of the USSR. The terms and concepts in the Short Encyclopedia of Literature span all fields of modern literary scholarship, as well as aesthetics, journalism, linguistics, and book science. It has more than 13,000 articles about writers, critics, linguists, aes-theticians, and publishers, and it contains articles about the languages of most of the peoples of the world. It is illustrated.

In the USSR, the most complete dictionaries include Soviet Russian Prose Writers (Russkie sovetskie pisateli-prozaiki, vols. 1–7, Leningrad, 1959–72, A. Kviatkovskii’s Poetical Dictionary (Poeticheskii slovar’, Moscow, 1966), and Russian Writers: Biobibliographical Dictionary (Russkie pisateli: Biobibliografich. slovar’, Moscow, 1971). There exist quite a few biobibliographical dictionaries of writers of other peoples of the USSR, published primarily during the 1950’s and 1960’s (mostly in Russian), of which the most fundamental is Ukrains’ki pys’men-nyky: Biobibliohrafichnyi slovnyk (vols. 1–5, Kiev, 1960–65).