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 Time Traveler's Wife is the debut novel of American author Audrey Niffenegger, published in 2003. It is a love story about a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably, and about his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences. Niffenegger, frustrated in love when she began the work, wrote the story as a metaphor for her failed relationships. The tale's central relationship came to her suddenly and subsequently supplied the novel's title. The novel, which has been classified as both science fiction and romance, examines issues of love, loss, and free will. In particular, it uses time travel to explore miscommunication and distance in relationships, while also investigating deeper existential questions.
As a first-time novelist, Niffenegger had trouble finding a literary agent. She eventually sent the novel to MacAdam/Cage unsolicited and, after an auction took place for the rights, Niffenegger selected them as her publishers. The book became a bestseller after an endorsement from author and family friend Scott Turow on The Today Show, and as of March 2009 had sold nearly 2.5 million copies in the United States and the United Kingdom. The novel won the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize and a British Book Award.
Selected excerpt
“ | It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. | ” |
— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities |
More Did you know
- ... that Irish poet John Keegan Casey was released from prison on the condition he leave for Australia, but instead he stayed in Dublin in disguise?
- ... that the 1916 children's novel Just David was the second in a series of four consecutive bestsellers in the United States for Eleanor H. Porter?
- ... that a decasyllabic quatrain is a poetic form in which each stanza consists of four lines of ten syllables, usually with a rhyme scheme of AABB or ABAB?
- ... that in late 2008, Norwegian novelist Johan Harstad won the Brage Prize and was hired as the first in-house playwright at the National Theatre of Norway?
- ... that the Franciscan friar Manuel Antonio de Rivas, who was tried for heresy in 1775 in Mexico, wrote the first science-fiction text in the Americas?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that literary critic Qian Xingcun brought several Communist writers into the Shanghai film industry?
- ... that in the Forum of Augustus in Rome, elogia were hung on statues of commanders and Augustus's ancestors?
- ... 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?
- ... that according to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the 1913 Polish novel The Cross and the Crescent is "perhaps the first example" of the genre of military science fiction in Polish literature?
- ... that History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brothers in the Caribbean by C. G. A. Oldendorp was the first book to publish Igbo-language terms in 1777?
- ... 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?
Today in literature
- 1661 - Antoine Gérard de Saint-Amant, French poet died
- 1785 - Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian poet died
- 1894 - Christina Rossetti, English poet died
- 1924 - Carl Spitteler, Swiss writer died
- 1926 - Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian writer died
- 1937 - Don Marquis, American author died
- 1957 - Paul Rudnick, American screenwriter/playwright born
- 1960 - Eden Phillpotts, British writer died
- 1980 - Nadezhda Mandelstam, Russian writer died
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Regions: | Australian literature · Indian literature · Persian literature |
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