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MLA Citation: Literary Works

Literary Works

  • Prose Works: if available in several editions, provide the page number plus additional information in your in-text reference, for example chapter, part, or scene number (as in the Dostoevsky example)

PROSE WORKS

Author last name, full given name(s). Title of Work: Subtitle. Other contributors, Publisher, Year.

Dostoevsky, Feodor. Crime and Punishment. Translated by Jessie Coulson, edited by George Gibian, Norton, 1964. 
 

In text citation: ... (Dostoevsky 20; pt. 1, ch. 1)

  • Verse Plays and Poems: if they have line numbering, omit page numbers, but cite by division (act, scene, canto, book, part) and line, with periods separating the various numbers (as in the Shakespeare example); if there are no divisions, but only line numbers, use this format: (lines 12-15); if no line numbering is given, then use page numbers or a division, whichever one is available
 

VERSE PLAYS

Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. Edited by Russ McDonald, Penguin, 2000.

In text citation: ... (Shakespeare 2.1.82-85)
  • Verse Plays and Poems: if they have line numbering, omit page numbers, but cite by division (act, scene, canto, book, part) and line, with periods separating the various numbers; if there are no divisions, but only line numbers, use this format: (lines 12-15); if no line numbering is given, then use page numbers or a division, whichever one is available

POEMS

Musgrave, Susan. "True Love." Origami Dove. McLelland & Stewart, 2011, pp. 16-17.

In text citation: ... (Musgrave 16)