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 Story of Miss Moppet is a tale about teasing, featuring a kitten and a mouse, that was written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was published by Frederick Warne & Co for the 1906 Christmas season. Potter was born in London in 1866, and between 1902 and 1905 published a series of small format children's books with Warne. In 1906, she experimented with an atypical panorama design for Miss Moppet, which booksellers disliked; the story was reprinted in 1916 in small book format
Miss Moppet, the story's eponymous main character, is a kitten teased by a mouse. While pursuing him she bumps her head on a cupboard. She then wraps a duster about her head, and sits before the fire "looking very ill". The curious mouse creeps closer, is captured, "and because the Mouse has teased Miss Moppet—Miss Moppet thinks she will tease the Mouse; which is not at all nice of Miss Moppet". She ties him up in the duster and tosses him about. However, the mouse makes his escape, and once safely out of reach, dances a jig atop the cupboard.
Although, critically, The Story of Miss Moppet is considered one of Potter's lesser efforts, for young children it is valued as an introduction to books in general, and to the world of Peter Rabbit.
Selected excerpt
“ | It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting—everything happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy conscience pricking him and whispering "whitewash!" he somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working. | ” |
— Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows |
More Did you know
- ... that Samuel Minturn Peck was the first Poet Laureate of Alabama, a title created for him, from 1930 until his death in 1938?
- ... that James McBride was described as "clearly stunned" when his novel The Good Lord Bird won the National Book Award for Fiction?
- ... that Arishima Ikuma, Japanese novelist, published his new-style poems and short stories as a vehicle to introduce the works of the French impressionist painter Paul Cézanne to the Japanese public?
- ... that German-born Jewish Egyptologist Käte Bosse-Griffiths published a novel in the Welsh language?
- ... that John Fowles' postmodern novel The French Lieutenant's Woman both emulated and parodied popular Victorian novels, like those of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Cathie Dunsford was unable to find many books about lesbianism in the 1970s, but by the 1980s had herself become a writer and anthologist of lesbian literature?
- ... 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 more than 1000 tons of paper were used every year printing car literature for the British Motor Corporation by the in-house Nuffield Press?
- ... that Charles Larson became one of the first Americans to teach African literature, after working in Nigeria for the Peace Corps to avoid the Vietnam draft?
- ... that the bridge from which James Bond leapt in No Time to Die is actually an aqueduct?
- ... that Galadriel's gift of some of her hair to Gimli in The Lord of the Rings has echoes in both English literature and Norse legend?
Today in literature
- 1605 - Thomas Browne, English writer born
- 1682 - Thomas Browne, English writer died
- 1745 - Jonathan Swift, Irish author died
- 1899 - Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemalan writer born
- 1913 - Vinicius de Moraes, Brazilian poet born
- 1931 - John le Carré, English novelist born
- 1936 - Lu Xun, Chinese writer died
- 1946 - Philip Pullman, English writer born
- 1950 - Edna St. Vincent Millay, American poet died
- 1999 - Nathalie Sarraute, Russian-born French writer died
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