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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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the 2004 first novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. An alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars, it is based on the premise that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centring on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of "Englishness" and the boundaries between reason and unreason, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dane, and Northern and Southern English cultural tropes/stereotypes. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. It inverts the Industrial Revolution conception of the North/South divide in England: in this book the North is romantic and magical, rather than rational and concrete.
The narrative draws on various Romantic literary traditions, such as the comedy of manners, the Gothic tale, and the Byronic hero. The novel's language is a pastiche of 19th-century writing styles, such as those of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Clarke describes the supernatural with mundane details. She supplements the text with almost 200 footnotes, outlining the backstory and an entire fictional corpus of magical scholarship. The novel was well received by critics and reached number three on the New York Times best-seller list. It was longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize and won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
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 Mei Ze's forgery of Kong Anguo's compilation of the Book of Documents was officially recognized as a Confucian classic for over 1000 years?
- ... that, although Ernest Hemingway wrote many words, he probably didn't write "For sale: baby shoes, never worn"?
- ... that Goodnight Mister Tom, which is an adaptation of the children's novel of the same name, won the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment at the 2013 Olivier Awards?
- ... that the 17th-century English poet Thomas Jordan wrote one poem that was widely anthologized in the 20th century, even though his poetry had been disdained by his contemporaries?
- ... that in his book In Secret Tibet, author Theodore Illion relates how he twice saw what he called "flying lamas" who could supposedly sit on an ear of barley without bending its stalk?
Selected illustration
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that campaign literature in the 1894 Montana capital referendum accused Helena residents of copious Manhattan consumption?
- ... that literary critic Leslie Fiedler called the novel Band of Angels "operatic in the worst sense of the word"?
- ... that The Tale of Genji's Kaoru Genji has been called literature's first antihero?
- ... that the literary movement of créolie tries to integrate the identity of Réunion with France?
- ... that Bellman's song "Ge rum i Bröllopsgåln din hund!" describes "one of the wildest weddings in Swedish literature"?
- ... that John Seigenthaler hosted a literary interview program which ran for 42 years on Nashville Public Television?
Today in literature
- 1125 - Cosmas of Prague, Bohemian writer died
- 1687 - Sir Edmund Waller, English poet died
- 1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, British poet born
- 1790 - Alphonse de Lamartine, French writer born
- 1847 - Giuseppe Giacosa, Italian writer born
- 1873 - Johan Sebastian Welhaven, Norwegian poet died
- 1904 - Patrick Kavanagh, Irish poet born
- 1931 - Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian writer died
- 1914 - Martin Gardner, American mathematician and writer born
- 1929 - Ursula K. Le Guin, American author born
- 1956 - Carrie Fisher, American actress and writer born
- 1969 - Jack Kerouac, American novelist died
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