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...)
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The Man in the Moone is a book by the English divine and Church of England bishop Francis Godwin (1562–1633), describing a "voyage of utopian discovery". Initially considered to be one of his early works, it is now generally thought to have been written in the late 1620s. It was first published posthumously in 1638 under the pseudonym of Domingo Gonsales. The work is notable for its role in what was called the "new astronomy," the branch of astronomy influenced especially by Nicolaus Copernicus, the only astronomer mentioned by name, although the book also draws on the theories of Johannes Kepler, William Gilbert, and Galileo Galilei.
The work tells the story of Gonsales, a Spaniard who discovers a species of wild swan able to carry substantial loads, the gansa, and contrives a device that allows him to harness many of them together and fly around an island, and eventually, to the moon and back.
Some critics consider The Man in the Moone, along with Kepler's Somnium, to be one of the first works of science fiction. Although the book was well known in the 17th century, and even inspired parodies by Cyrano de Bergerac and Aphra Behn, modern literary critics do not consider it to be very important.
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 although the protagonist of F.D.J. Pangemanann's novel Tjerita Si Tjonat is evil without a single redeeming feature, he was portrayed as a popular hero in wartime Indonesia?
- ... that Hungarian writer Károly Pap lived in desperate poverty?
- ... that Jeanne Galzy's novel Burnt Offering, winner of the 1930 Prix Brentano, explores a love between a teacher and a 12-year-old female student?
- ... that Ananda Chandra Barua was a writer, poet, playwright, translator, journalist and actor from Assam, who received Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of the country in 1970?
- ... that Tio Ie Soei's novel Sie Po Giok has been called the only work of Chinese Malay literature fit for children to read?
Selected illustration
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Robert Aiello's first novel was published after literary agents turned it down roughly 60 times?
- ... that The Tale of Genji's Kaoru Genji has been called literature's first antihero?
- ... that despite a career writing queer literature, Chen Xue's 2019 novel Fatherless City had a "putatively straight premise"?
- ... that Hammersmith by Gustav Holst was acclaimed by Frederick Fennell for having "some of the most treacherous stretches of music making" in band literature?
- ... that Rudaki is acknowledged as the founder of New Persian poetry in Iran and the father of Tajik literature in Tajikistan?
- ... that literary agent Jacques Chambrun sold unauthorized, scandalous excerpts of a Marilyn Monroe memoir to a British tabloid?
Today in literature
- 1547 - Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author is born. He is best known for his novel Don Quixote de la Mancha, which is considered by many to be the first modern novel, one of the greatest works in Western literature, and the greatest in the Spanish language.
- 1800 - Michael Denis, Austrian poet died
- 1810 - Elizabeth Gaskell, British novelist born
- 1864 - Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish writer and philosopher born
- 1901 - Lanza del Vasto, Italian philosopher and poet born
- 1902 - William Topaz McGonagall, British poet died
- 1902 - Émile Zola, French writer died
- 1908 - Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Brazilian writer died
- 1930 - Colin Dexter, British author of Inspector Morse novels is born
- 1951 - Andrés Caicedo, Colombian writer born
- 1967 - Carson McCullers, American author died
- 1973 - W. H. Auden, English poet died
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Regions: | Australian literature · Indian literature · Persian literature |
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