The following abbreviations are commonly understood in the literature and humanities and can be used freely for intext citiation. The relevent act, scene, chapter, verse, line, etc would be appended. For example, William Shakespere's Taming of the Shrew, act one, scene one, lines one to ten would appear:
Shr.1.1.1-10
Note the use of periods as separators between each element and the use of Arabic numbers exclusively.
Table of Standard Literary Abbreviations
| Author | Title | Abrv. |
| Aeschylus | Agmemnon | Ag. |
| Aeschylus | Eumenides | Eum. |
| Aeschylus | Oresteia | Or. |
| Anonymous | Beowulf | Beo. |
| Anonymous | Epic of Gilgamesh | Gil. |
| Anonymous | Nibelungenlied | Nib. |
| Anonymous | Sir Gawain and the Green Knight | SGGK |
| Aristophanes | Lysistrata | Lys. |
| Boccaccio | Decameron | Dec. |
| Byron | Don Juan | DJ |
| Cervantes | Don Quixote | DQ |
| Chaucer | Chaucer's Retraction | Ret |
| Chaucer | The Book of the Duchess | BD |
| Chaucer | The Canon Yeoman's Tale | CYT |
| Chaucer | The Canterbury Tales | CT |
| Chaucer | The Clerk's Tale | ClT |
| Chaucer | The Cook's Tale | CkT |
| Chaucer | The Franklin's Tale | FranT |
| Chaucer | The Friar's Tale | FrT |
| Chaucer | The General Prologue | GP |
| Chaucer | The House of Fame | HF |
| Chaucer | The Knight's Tale | KnT |
| Chaucer | The Legend of Good Women | LGW |
| Chaucer | The Man of Law's Tale | MLT |
| Chaucer | The Manciple's Tale | ManT |
| Chaucer | The Merchant's Tale | MerT |
| Chaucer | The Miller's Tale | MilT |
| Chaucer | The Monk's Tale | MkT |
| Chaucer | The Nun's Priest's Tale | NPT |
| Chaucer | The Pardoner's Tale | PardT |
| Chaucer | The Parliament of Fowls | PF |
| Chaucer | The Parson's Tale | ParsT |
| Chaucer | The Physician's Tale | PhyT |
| Chaucer | The Prioriess's Tale | PrT |
| Chaucer | The Reeve's Tale | RvT |
| Chaucer | The Second Nun's Tale | SNT |
| Chaucer | The Shipman's Tale | ShT |
| Chaucer | The Squire's Tale | SqT |
| Chaucer | The Summoner's Tale | SumT |
| Chaucer | The Tale of Melibee | Mel |
| Chaucer | The Tale of Sir Thopas | Th |
| Chaucer | The Wife of Bath's Tale | WBT |
| Chaucer | Troilus and Criseyde | TC |
| Dante | Inferno | Inf. |
| Dante | Paradiso | Par. |
| Dante | Purgatorio | Purg. |
| DeNavarre, Marguerite | Heptameron | Hept. |
| Euripedes | Bacchae | Bac. |
| Euripides | Hippolytus | Hip. |
| Euripides | Medea | Med. |
| Homer | Illiad | Il. |
| Homer | Odyssey | Od. |
| Melville | Moby-Dick | MD |
| Milton | Paradise Lost | PL |
| Milton | Samson Agonistes | SA |
| Moliere | Le misanthrope | Mis. |
| Moliere | Tartuffe | Tar. |
| Plato | Republic | Rep. |
| Plato | Symposium | Sym. |
| Shakespeare | A Lover's Complaint | LC |
| Shakespeare | All's Well That Ends Well | AWW |
| Shakespeare | Antony and Cleopatra | Ant. |
| Shakespeare | As You Like It | AYL |
| Shakespeare | Coriolanus | Cor. |
| Shakespeare | Cymbeline | Cym. |
| Shakespeare | First Folio Edition (1623) | F1 |
| Shakespeare | Hamlet | Ham. |
| Shakespeare | Henry IV, Part 1 | 1H4 |
| Shakespeare | Henry IV, Part 2 | 2H4 |
| Shakespeare | Henry V | H5 |
| Shakespeare | Henry VI, Part 1 | 1H6 |
| Shakespeare | Henry VI, Part 2 | 2H6 |
| Shakespeare | Henry VI, Part 3 | 3H6 |
| Shakespeare | Henry VIII | H8 |
| Shakespeare | Julius Caesar | JC |
| Shakespeare | King John | Jn. |
| Shakespeare | King Lear | Lr. |
| Shakespeare | Love's Labour Lost | LLL |
| Shakespeare | Macbeth | Mac. |
| Shakespeare | Measure for Measure | MM |
| Shakespeare | Midsummer Night's Dream | MND |
| Shakespeare | Much Ado about Nothing | Ado |
| Shakespeare | Othello | Oth. |
| Shakespeare | Pericles | Per. |
| Shakespeare | Quarto Edition | Q |
| Shakespeare | Richard II | R2 |
| Shakespeare | Richard III | R3 |
| Shakespeare | Romeo and Juliette | Rom. |
| Shakespeare | Second Folio Edition (1632) | F2 |
| Shakespeare | Sonnets | Son. |
| Shakespeare | The Comedy of Errors | Err. |
| Shakespeare | The Merchant of Venice | MV |
| Shakespeare | The Merry Wives of Windsor | Wiv. |
| Shakespeare | The Passionate Pilgrim | PP |
| Shakespeare | The Phoenix and the Turtle | PhT |
| Shakespeare | The Rape of Lucrece | Luc. |
| Shakespeare | The Taming of the Shrew | Shr. |
| Shakespeare | The Tempest | Tmp. |
| Shakespeare | The Two Gentlemen of Verona | TGV |
| Shakespeare | The Two Noble Kinsman | TNK |
| Shakespeare | The Winter's Tale | WT |
| Shakespeare | Timon of Athens | Tim. |
| Shakespeare | Titus Andronicus | Tit. |
| Shakespeare | Troilus and Cressida | Tro. |
| Shakespeare | Twelfth Night | TN |
| Shakespeare | Venus and Adonis | Ven. |
| Sophocles | Antigone | Ant. |
| Sophocles | Oedipus Rex | OR |
| Sophocles | Oedipus Trrannus | OT |
| Spenser | The Farie Queene | FQ |
| Swift | Gulliver's Travels | GT |
| Vergil | Aeneid | Aen. |
| Voltaire | Candide | Can. |
| Wordsworth | Lyrical Ballads | LB |
| Wordsworth | The Prelude | Prel. |
