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...)
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The Duino Elegies are a collection of ten elegies written by the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926). Rilke, who is "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets," began writing the elegies in 1912 while a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis (1855–1934) at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. The poems, 859 lines long in total, were dedicated to the Princess upon their publication in 1923. During this ten-year period, the elegies languished incomplete for long stretches of time as Rilke suffered frequently from severe depression—some of which was caused by the events of World War I and being conscripted into military service. Aside from brief episodes of writing in 1913 and 1915, Rilke did not return to the work until a few years after the war ended. With a sudden, renewed inspiration—writing in a frantic pace he described as a "boundless storm, a hurricane of the spirit"—he completed the collection in February 1922 while staying at Château de Muzot in Veyras, in Switzerland's Rhone Valley. After their publication in 1923 and Rilke's death in 1926, the Duino Elegies were quickly recognized by critics and scholars as his most important work.
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“ | A lion was awakened from sleep by a Mouse running over his face. Rising up angrily, he caught him and was about to kill him, when the Mouse piteously entreated, saying: 'If you would only spare my life, I would be sure to repay your kindness.' The Lion laughed and let him go. It happened shortly after this that the Lion was caught by some hunters, who bound him by strong ropes to the ground. The Mouse, recognizing his roar, came, gnawed the rope with his teeth, and set him free, exclaiming 'You ridiculed the idea of my ever being able to help you, expecting to receive from me any repayment of your favor; but now you know that it is possible for even a Mouse to confer benefits on a Lion.' | ” |
— Aesop, "The Lion and the Mouse" |
More Did you know
- ... that the 1993 romance novel Just This Once was authored by a computer in collaboration with its programmer?
- ... that, as a publisher and literary critic, Drago Siliqi increased translation of foreign literature into Albanian and encouraged Ismail Kadare to write his first novel, The General of the Dead Army?
- ... that Charlotte Mary Sanford Barnes' play Octavia Bragaldi moves the Kentucky Tragedy from 1825 to 15th century Milan?
- ... that novelist Shirley Barker's first book of poetry enraged poet Robert Frost?
- ... that Shackles was the first Indonesian novel to portray a prostitute sympathetically?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that campaign literature in the 1894 Montana capital referendum accused Helena residents of copious Manhattan consumption?
- ... that literary critic Qian Xingcun brought several Communist writers into the Shanghai film industry?
- ... that Emelia Quinn argues that "monstrous vegans" have recurred in literature since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?
- ... that The Man Without Talent is an I-novel, a genre of semi-autobiographical confessional literature that has been popular in Japan since the early twentieth century?
- ... that The Tale of Genji's Kaoru Genji has been called literature's first antihero?
- ... that the Three Bards are the most celebrated poets in the history of Polish literature?
Today in literature
- 1693 - Paul Pellisson, French writer died
- 1812 - Charles Dickens, English novelist born
- 1823 - Ann Radcliffe, English novelist died
- 1839 - Karl August Nicander, Swedish poet died
- 1867 - Laura Ingalls Wilder, American author born
- 1873 - Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish writer died
- 1885 - Sinclair Lewis, American writer born
- 1905 - Paul Nizan, French author born
- 1998 - Lawrence Sanders, American author died
- 2001 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American author died
- 2003 - Augusto Monterroso, Guatemalan author died
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