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.
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
“ | When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wonder'd. Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred! |
” |
— Alfred Tennyson, "The Charge of the Light Brigade" |
More Did you know
- ... that author Elizabeth Jordan edited the first two novels of Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis?
- ... that the first Indonesian novel by a woman, Kalau Tak Untung, deals with an "inexorable fate" which all humans must face?
- ... that Maya Angelou, who recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Clinton's 1993 inauguration, was the first poet to read an inaugural poem since Robert Frost at Kennedy's in 1961?
- ... that the author of Awful Splendour: A Fire History of Canada worked 15 years as a wildland firefighter on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon?
- ... that Gambler's Lament, one of the few non–religious poems in the ancient Hindu scripture Rig Veda, testifies to the popularity of gambling among Vedic Aryans?
Selected illustration
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski – considered "the founding father of Polish literature" – wrote threnodies, the first Polish-language tragedy, and epigrams?
- ... that Sheila Egoff, Canada's first professor of children's literature, returned to her library work immediately after retirement?
- ... that Peter Demetz, who taught German literature at Yale University from 1956 to 1991, was born in Prague where he was persecuted under the Nazis and escaped the Communist regime in 1949?
- ... that John Seigenthaler hosted a literary interview program which ran for 42 years on Nashville Public Television?
- ... that Māori fiction written in English, now a key part of New Zealand literature, only emerged in the 1950s?
- ... that in her 2021 book The Origins of Early Christian Literature, Robyn Faith Walsh found that German Romanticists were in part responsible for modern scholarly assumptions about the gospels?
Today in literature
- 1613 - François de La Rochefoucauld, French writer born
- 1613 - Thomas Overbury, English writer died (murdered)
- 1701 - Edmé Boursault, French writer died
- 1789 - James Fenimore Cooper, American novelist born
- 1889 - Robert Benchley, American author born
- 1890 - Agatha Christie, English writer remembered for her 80 mystery novels, particularly featuring detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, is born
- 1898 - J. Slauerhoff, Dutch poet and novelist born
- 1914 - Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentine writer born
- 1926 - Rudolf Christoph Eucken, German writer died
- 1955 - Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is published in Paris by Olympia Press.
- 1969 - Jim Curtiss, American writer born
- 1989 - Robert Penn Warren, American writer died
- 2003 - Josef Hiršal, Czech novelist died
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