how to mhra reference a poem?

First mention in the text:

Shelley's Frankenstein begins with a scientific voyage to the North Pole where Captain Walton hopes to make his own scientific discoveries. 1

Corresponding footnote reference:

_______________________________

1 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, ed. by Maurice Hindle, rev. edn (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 7.

Subsequent mentions in the text:

Captain Walton's instinctive pity for Victor, ''the most poignant grief' he feels (Frankenstein, p. 18) is in stark contrast to Victor's reaction to his own creature when...

If your chosen quotation is relatively short (i.e., no more than two lines in length), use a brief phrase within your paragraph or sentence to introduce the quotation before including it inside single quotation marks ‘ ’. For longer quotations, you should indent the quotation in full, so that it appears as an indented paragraph of its own, and no quotation marks are needed around the text. A footnote should follow both forms of quotation.

For example, you may find an interesting quotation from a named person in a newspaper article, interview or other published material. In this case, the person quoted is different from the person writing the source itself.

In-text:

Footnote:

Quoting from a single character’s speech involves simply putting the line in single quotation marks. When quoting dialogue, you should include the characters’ names, as in the following example:

This would then be followed by a footnote.

When quoting from a play with line numbers, such as a play by Shakespeare, include the line number in the footnote (in the form: p. x, l. y). For example:

Corresponding footnote:

If you’re writing an essay and want to cite a poem in MHRA, the process is a little different to referencing other works. In this post, we demonstrate the formats for both footnote citations and bibliography entries of poems in MHRA referencing.

In MHRA referencing, you use footnotes to supply information about the source. You signal the footnotes with superscript numbers in the text, which you usually place after the final punctuation:

Place footnotes after final punctuation.1

You then provide the bibliographic information in a footnote.

Here is the format for footnote citations of poems found in edited books:

n. Poet Name(s), ‘Poem Title’, in Collection Title, ed. by Editor Name(s) (Place of publication: Publisher, Year), p. x OR pp. x–xx (p. x), x–xx.

Be sure to provide page and line number(s), as you are quoting the poem. Use the abbreviations ‘p.’ for ‘page’ or ‘pp.’ for ‘pages’ when giving the full page range for the poem, then give the specific line numbers after a comma. For example:

1. Wilfred Owen, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, in Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times, ed. by Neil Astley (Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 2002), p. 347, 45.

Here, for example, we’re citing line 45 of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, which appears on page 347 of the collection Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times.

If you cite the same poem more than once in your document, you can use a shortened footnote citation after the first. Typically, this is the poet’s surname and a page number. See our blog post on repeat citations in MHRA for more information.

If you are referencing a poem found online, the footnote format is slightly different:

n. Poet Name(s), ‘Poem Title’, Website (Year) [accessed day month year].

The year refers to when the web page was last updated. If this information is not available, use ‘[n.d.]’ (meaning ‘no date’) instead.

Here is an example of a footnote citation for an online poem:

2. Sylvia Plath, ‘Blackberrying’, All Poetry [n.d.] [accessed 22 July 2021].

As with poems from a collection, you can shorten footnotes for repeat citations.

You should include every source you cite in your text in your bibliography. This should be arranged alphabetically by the authors’ surnames. The format for bibliography entries is identical to footnote citations, except:

Here’s how you would reference the above poems:

Owen, Wilfred, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, in Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times, ed. by Neil Astley (Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 2002), p. 347

Authors First Name and Last Name, 'Title of Poem', in Title of book/collection, ed. by Name of Editor, edition number (Place of publication: Publisher, Date), book number in roman numerals (if a multi-volume work). Starting line number (if a direct quotation) or line range if referring to a passage.