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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Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays.
Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. Its plot is based on an Italian tale, translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but, to expand the plot, developed supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris. Believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first published in a quarto version in 1597.
Shakespeare's use of his poetic dramatic structure, especially effects such as switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension, his expansion of minor characters, and his use of sub-plots to embellish the story, has been praised as an early sign of his dramatic skill. The play ascribes different poetic forms to different characters, sometimes changing the form as the character develops. Romeo, for example, grows more adept at the sonnet over the course of the play.
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“ | Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn’t mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter. | ” |
— Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit |
More Did you know
- ... that Danilo Kiš's 1965 novel Garden, Ashes mixes fact and fiction, with both the narrator and the author having lost their fathers in the Holocaust?
- ... that in Lady of Sherwood, Jennifer Roberson chose to write about the demise of Richard I because the "death of a popular monarch always provide fodder for novelists"?
- ... that blind poet María Josefa Mujía was Bolivia's first woman writer after its independence?
- ... that De Scheepsjongens van Bontekoe, the 1924 Dutch children's book based on a real-life shipwreck in 1618, has sold more than 250,000 copies?
- ... that Iosif Vulcan changed the name of a young literary debutant to Mihai Eminescu, later Romania's national poet?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the bridge from which James Bond leapt in No Time to Die is actually an aqueduct?
- ... that Al-Wishah fi Fawa'id al-Nikah, a 15th-century Islamic sex manual by Egyptian writer Al-Suyuti, was based on both traditional hadith literature and material influenced by Indian erotology?
- ... 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 Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski – considered "the founding father of Polish literature" – wrote threnodies, the first Polish-language tragedy, and epigrams?
- ... 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 19th-century Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski travelled the countryside as a "wild man" and later appeared as a literary character?
Today in literature
- 1296 - Guillaume Durand, French writer died
- 1530 - Étienne de La Boétie, French judge and writer born
- 1588 - Jean Daurat, French poet died
- 1607 - Georg Philipp Harsdorffer, German poet born
- 1636 - Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, French poet and critic born
- 1643 - John Strype, English historian and biographer born
- 1704 - Paul Daniel Longolius, German encyclopedist born
- 1790 - Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he predicts that the French Revolution will end in a disaster.
- 1871 - Stephen Crane, American writer born
- 1880 - Sholom Asch, Polish-born American writer born
- 1880 - Grantland Rice, American sports writer born
- 1886 - Hermann Broch, Austrian author born
- 1903 - Theodor Mommsen, German writer died
- 1907 - Alfred Jarry, French writer died
- 1955 - Dale Carnegie, American writer died
- 1972 - Ezra Pound, American poet died
- 2006 - William Styron, American author died
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Regions: | Australian literature · Indian literature · Persian literature |
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