Research Guides: French Language and Literature: Dictionaries & Reference

Dictionaries

French language dictionaries can be found in Hatcher Reference Room and the South Stacks in the call number range PC2001 - PC3761.

The most extensive French dictionary online is Le Grand Robert de la langue française.

Bilingual dictionaries:

Oxford Reference Online - includes The Concise Oxford-Hachette French-English Dictionary as well as The Oxford Business French Dictionary.
Collins French Dictionary
Le Grand Ricci Online - a comprehensive Chinese-French dictionary

Your Dictionary: French dictionaries
Collection of French-English and specialized French only dictionaries

Historical dictionaries:

ARTFL's Dictionnaires d'autrefois include Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française, Littré’s Dictionnaire de la langue française, as well as Jean Nicot’s Le Thresor de la langue françoyse, tant ancienne que moderne and Jean-François Féraud’s Dictionaire critique de la langue française.

Trésor de la langue française (in print)
Not the dictionary one might consult for a quick definition, but if you wish to understand a word in all in meanings and ramifications, its orthographic and etymological history, then this is the dictionary for you. Though limited to the French of the 19th and 20th centuries, this is still one of the most comprehensive and exhaustive of all dictionaries.
Hatcher Graduate Library PC 2650 .I32

Reference Resources Online

Gale Literature This link opens in a new window
Includes Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, and Dictionary of Literary Biography. Provides in-depth information on the lives and writings of nearly 100,000 authors.

Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism
A reference guide to the intellectual traditions of literary theory, containing signed articles on critics and theorists, countries, schools and movements, and historical periods.

Dictionnaire Montesquieu This link opens in a new window
More than two hundred articles to cover all aspects of Montesquieu’s thought, life, and works. Bilingual: English and French.

Reference Resources in Print

Guide to French Poetry Explication
Compiled by Kathleen Coleman, this guide includes all periods of French literary history from the Middle Ages to the present, with primary emphasis on poets generally included in the French literary canon. Materials indexed include general works of poetry criticism, books on a single poet, conference proceedings, edited volumes of essays, and the most widely-held scholarly journals. Shelved in the Reference Room.

The Feminist Encyclopedia of French Literature
The entries on individual women are complemented by essays on broad literary, historical, political, and sociological topics, as well as information on literary genres, movements, and life-cycle events particular to women, each with its own bibliography. The work also includes a general bibliography, chronology, and subject index. Edited by Eva Martin Sartori. Shelved in the Reference Room.

Dictionnaire des littératures de langue française
Edited by Jean-Pierre de Beaumarchais, Daniel Couty, and Alain Rey, this work, in their own words, "... Au dela des noms d'auteurs et d'oeuvres, le dictionnaire est aussi un répertoire d'histoire litteraire, réperée par les écoles et les tendances ... par quelques faits historiques ... par des groupes ... par les nom de publications importantes dan la vie litterraires du passé et du present ..." Shelved in the Reference Room.

Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires africaines de langue française
Organized alphabetically within three larger categories: Roman/Récit/Conte, Poésie, and Théatre. Includes both writers and their works. Indexed both by title and author. Edited by Pius Ngandu Nkashama. Shelved in the Reference Room.

Dictionnaire des œuvres littéraires de langue française
Edited by Jean-Pierre de Beaumarchais and Daniel Couty, and as they say in the avant-propos " ... c'est par l'étude exclusive et globale des textes en tant que tels, et non plus a partir des hommes, des genres, des écoles ou de simples fragments que nous cherchons ici a atteindre notre 'fuyante proie'."

Dictionnaire du littéraire
Edited by Paul Aron, Denis Saint-Jacques, and Alain Viala, this work consists of signed articles on everything from "Absurde" to "Vraisemblance", each with bibliography and cross references to related articles. Shelved in the Reference Room.