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 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
“ | Something incomprehensible, vexatious and hopeless takes possession of the man's whole being. He forgets his comrade who is awaiting him, forgets the work that is to be accomplished that night, and with his whole excited spirit abandons himself to the dumb dog. He cannot convince himself that the dog does not comprehend either the danger, or his words, or the necessity of going home at once. He lifts him angrily by the skin of his neck and so carries him ten steps nearer to the house. There he deposits him carefully on the snow and commands: "Away with you, go home!" | ” |
— Leonid Andreyev, The Burglar |
More Did you know
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- ... that Shabnam Shakeel was a Pakistani Urdu poet who won the "President's Pride of Performance award" in 2004?
- ... that the 1987 novel The Firebrand, written by American author Marion Zimmer Bradley, depicts the Trojan War from the perspective of the prophet Kassandra, daughter of King Priam?
- ... that the admirers of poet Mary Elizabeth McGrath Blake included Theodore Roosevelt and Oliver Wendell Holmes?
- ... that one reason the medieval English writer Robert of Cricklade's biography of Thomas Becket may have been lost is it was too favourable to the side of King Henry II of England rather than Becket?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Emelia Quinn argues that "monstrous vegans" have recurred in literature since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?
- ... that Sheila Egoff, Canada's first professor of children's literature, returned to her library work immediately after retirement?
- ... that Walid Daqqa wrote several works of prison literature, including a children's novel about a boy who uses magical olive oil to visit his imprisoned father?
- ... that 19th-century Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski travelled the countryside as a "wild man" and later appeared as a literary character?
- ... that a study of Anglo-Saxon literature begun by Bernard Pitt in 1914 was completed by a colleague after Pitt was killed in the First World War?
- ... that despite specializing in literature and serving as a senior editor of the Zhonghua Book Company, historian Zhang Zhenglang never published a single book of his own?
Today in literature
- 1616 - Andreas Gryphius, German writer born
- 1885 - François Mauriac, French writer born
- 1925 - Elmore Leonard, American novelist born
- 1935 - Steele Rudd, Australian author died
- 1937 - R. H. W. Dillard, American poet born
- 1963 - Jean Cocteau, French writer died
- 1976 - Alfredo Bracchi, Italian author died
- 1977 - MacKinlay Kantor, American author died
- 2005 - Shan-ul-Haq Haqqee, Linguist, and writer of Pakistan died
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