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.
The term is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, which encompasses fiction written with the goal of literary merit.Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, letters, and essays. Within its broad 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
An 1890 recording of Walt Whitman reading the opening four lines of his poem "America", from his collection Leaves of Grass
More Did you know
- ... that an episode in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream may have been a "riff" on the medieval German poem Der Busant?
- ... that Spock Must Die! and Spock, Messiah! were the first two original novels for adults to be written in the Star Trek universe?
- ... that the poem Nachuk Tahate Shyama, written by Swami Vivekananda, relates to one's surrender to the Hindu goddess Kali?
- ... that in 1845 Robert Browning met Elizabeth Barrett and wrote "Meeting at Night", the "most sensual poem" he had written up to that time?
- ... that according to James Joyce, Édouard Dujardin's 1887 novel Les Lauriers sont coupés is the first example of the stream of consciousness technique?
Selected illustration
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that literary agent Jacques Chambrun sold unauthorized, scandalous excerpts of a Marilyn Monroe memoir to a British tabloid?
- ... that Malaysian poet Wong Phui Nam wrote in English, despite feeling no connection to the English literary tradition?
- ... that Children's Fantasy Literature is the first work to address the genre's 500-year history in depth?
- ... that the literary magazine Adabijoti Soveti was the sole remaining publication in the Jewish-Bukharian language by the time of the switch to the Cyrillic script in 1939–1940?
- ... that The Tale of Genji's Kaoru Genji has been called literature's first antihero?
- ... that Al-Wishah fi Fawa'id al-Nikah, a 15th-century Islamic sex manual by Egyptian writer Al-Suyuti, was based on both traditional hadith literature and material influenced by Indian erotology?
Today in literature
- 1628 - Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, English poet died
- 1700 - Stanisław Konarski, Polish writer born
- 1868 - First edition of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is published.
- 1904 - Waldo Williams, Welsh poet born
- 1924 - Truman Capote, American author born
- 1990 - Patrick White, Australian writer died
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Regions: | Australian literature · Indian literature · Persian literature |
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