Portal:Literature
Introduction
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment. It can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
Literary criticism is one of the oldest academic disciplines, and is concerned with the literary merit or intellectual significance of specific texts. The study of books and other texts as artifacts or traditions is instead encompassed by textual criticism or the history of the book. "Literature", as an art form, is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, fiction written with the goal of artistic merit, but can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, letters, and essays. Within this broader definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles, or other written information on a particular subject. (Full article...)
General images -
The Diary of a Nobody is an English comic novel written by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith, with illustrations by the latter. It originated as an intermittent serial in Punch magazine in 1888–89 and first appeared in book form, with extended text and added illustrations, in 1892. The Diary records the daily events in the lives of a London clerk, Charles Pooter, his wife Carrie, his son Lupin, and numerous friends and acquaintances over a period of 15 months.
Although its initial public reception was muted, the Diary came to be recognised by critics as a classic work of humour, and it has never been out of print. It helped to establish a genre of humorous popular fiction based on lower or lower-middle class aspirations, and was the forerunner of numerous fictitious diary novels in the later 20th century. The Diary has been the subject of several stage and screen adaptations, including Ken Russell's "silent film" treatment of 1964, a four-part TV film scripted by Andrew Davies in 2007, and a widely praised stage version in 2011, in which an all-male cast of three played all the parts.
Selected excerpt
“ | Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful in God’s sight. Even the sad, sour sisters should be kindly dealt with, because they have missed the sweetest part of life, if for no other reason. And looking at them with compassion, not contempt, girls in their bloom should remember that they too may miss the blossom time. That rosy cheeks don’t last forever, that silver threads will come in the bonnie brown hair, and that, by-and-by, kindness and respect will be as sweet as love and admiration now. | ” |
— Louisa May Alcott, Little Women |
More Did you know
- ... that in Juliet H. Lewis Campbell's novel Eros and Antieros the hero raises and marries the daughter of his unrequited love?
- ... that protests were organized against and calls were made out to expel writer Ekrem Eylisli from his native Azerbaijan following the publication of his novella?
- ... that most epic poems about the Babi Yar massacres were written by Russian and Ukrainian Jews who managed to survive the Holocaust?
- ... that Charles Stross's science-fiction novel Singularity Sky inspired a proposal to undermine the Taliban by giving every Afghan a free mobile phone?
- ... that after having written a poem on the 1625 great plague of London, the poet Abraham Holland died of the plague the following year?
Selected illustration
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that a 1955 satirical comedy play by Kasymaly Jantöshev was one of the first signs of the relaxation of Soviet literary restrictions after the death of Joseph Stalin?
- ... that Children's Fantasy Literature is the first work to address the genre's 500-year history in depth?
- ... that Emelia Quinn argues that "monstrous vegans" have recurred in literature since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?
- ... that 19th-century Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski travelled the countryside as a "wild man" and later appeared as a literary character?
- ... that there is a Gambian literature even though it has been argued that there is "minimal basis" for its existence?
- ... that literary fiction novel Agatha of Little Neon's title stems from a house that is "the color of Mountain Dew"?
Today in literature
- 1492 - Jami, Persian poet died
- 1692 - Thomas Shadwell, English poet and playwright died
- 1850 - Alfred Lord Tennyson becomes Poet Laureate, a position he held until his death in 1892.
- 1887 - Emma Lazarus, American poet died
- 1899 - Allen Tate, American poet and critic born
- 1900 - Anna Seghers, German writer born
- 1907 - Jack Schaefer, American author born
- 1942 - Sharon Olds, American poet born
- 1942 - Bruno Schulz, Polish writer and painter died
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Regions: | Australian literature · Indian literature · Persian literature |
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