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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"To Autumn" is a poem by English Romantic poet John Keats. The work was composed on 19 September 1819 and published in 1820 in a volume of Keats's poetry that included Lamia and The Eve of St. Agnes. "To Autumn" is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats's "1819 odes". Although personal problems left him little time to devote to poetry in 1819, he composed "To Autumn" after a walk near Winchester one autumnal evening. The work marks the end of his poetic career, as he needed to earn money and could no longer devote himself to the lifestyle of a poet. A little over a year following the publication of "To Autumn", Keats died in Rome.
The poem has three eleven-line stanzas which describe a progression through the season, from the late maturation of the crops to the harvest and to the last days of autumn when winter is nearing. The imagery is richly achieved through the personification of Autumn, and the description of its bounty, its sights and sounds. The work has been interpreted as a meditation on death; as an allegory of artistic creation; as Keats's response to the Peterloo Massacre, which took place in the same year; and as an expression of nationalist sentiment. One of the most anthologised English lyric poems, "To Autumn" has been regarded by critics as one of the most perfect short poems in the English language.
Selected excerpt
“ | When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wonder'd. Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred! |
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— Alfred Tennyson, "The Charge of the Light Brigade" |
More Did you know
- ... that in Juliet H. Lewis Campbell's novel Eros and Antieros the hero raises and marries the daughter of his unrequited love?
- ... that protests were organized against and calls were made out to expel writer Ekrem Eylisli from his native Azerbaijan following the publication of his novella?
- ... that most epic poems about the Babi Yar massacres were written by Russian and Ukrainian Jews who managed to survive the Holocaust?
- ... that Charles Stross's science-fiction novel Singularity Sky inspired a proposal to undermine the Taliban by giving every Afghan a free mobile phone?
- ... that after having written a poem on the 1625 great plague of London, the poet Abraham Holland died of the plague the following year?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the literary movement of créolie tries to integrate the identity of Réunion with France?
- ... 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 a teacher of medieval literature and comic books writes the blog Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle?
- ... that the cultural scholar Hermann Bausinger wrote a book about the history of literature from Swabia from the 18th century to the present, published for his 90th birthday?
- ... that Bellman's song "Ge rum i Bröllopsgåln din hund!" describes "one of the wildest weddings in Swedish literature"?
- ... 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
- 1493 - Bernardo Tasso, Italian poet born
- 1623 - Philippe de Mornay, French writer died
- 1834 - Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling was first published.
- 1764 - Barbara Juliana, Baroness von Krüdener, Russian writer born
- 1821 - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist born
- 1836 - Thomas Bailey Aldrich, American poet and novelist born
- 1901 - F. Van Wyck Mason, American author born
- 1914 - Howard Fast, American author born
- 1919 - Kalle Päätalo, Finnish novelist born
- 1922 - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., American novelist born
- 1928 - Carlos Fuentes, Mexican writer born
- 1929 - Hans Magnus Enzensberger, German writer born
- 1950 - Mircea Dinescu, Romanian poet born
- 1954 - Mary Gaitskill, American author born
- 1970 - Lee Battersby, Australian author born
- 1999 - Jacobo Timmerman, Argentine writer and journalist died
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