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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The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway about a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early and enduring modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication, but has since been considered his greatest work. The novel was published in the United States in October 1926 by the publishing house Scribner's.
On the surface the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him impotent—and the promiscuous divorcée Lady Brett Ashley. Brett's affair with Robert Cohn causes Jake to be upset and break off his friendship with Cohn; her seduction of the 19-year-old matador Romero causes Jake to lose his good reputation among the Spaniards in Pamplona. The novel is a roman à clef; the characters are based on real people and the action is based on real events. In the novel, Hemingway presents his notion that the "Lost Generation", considered to have been decadent, dissolute and irretrievably damaged by World War I, was resilient and strong. Additionally, Hemingway investigates the themes of love, death, renewal in nature, and the nature of masculinity.
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“ | When in 1892 I settled in Macao, a small island near the mouth of the Canton river, to practise medicine, I little dreamt that in four years time I should find myself a prisoner in the Chinese Legation in London, and the unwitting cause of a political sensation which culminated in the active interference of the British Government to procure my release. It was in that year however, and at Macao, that my first acquaintance was made with political life; and there began the part of my career which has been the means of bringing my name so prominently before the British people. | ” |
— Sun Yat-sen, Kidnapped in London |
More Did you know
- ... that a stage adaptation of Kwee Tek Hoay's novel The Rose of Cikembang was made before he even finished writing it?
- ... 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 campaign literature in the 1894 Montana capital referendum accused Helena residents of copious Manhattan consumption?
- ... that the North-Western Regional Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) ran an underground network to distribute literature to German soldiers in occupied areas?
- ... 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 Robert Weiner taught AP English Literature while coaching football at Henry B. Plant High School?
- ... that Abdul Ahad Azad is recognised for laying the foundations of literary criticism in Kashmiri literature?
- ... that The Inland Whale, by Theodora Kroeber, sought to demonstrate the literary merit of Indigenous American oral traditions?
Today in literature
- 1661 - Agustín Moreto y Cavana, Spanish playwright died
- 1676 - Jean Desmarets, French writer died
- 1754 - Friedrich von Hagedorn, German poet died
- 1806 - Charlotte Turner Smith, English poet and novelist died
- 1818 (O.S.) - Ivan Turgenev, Russian writer born
- 1879 - Marie Roch Louis Reybaud, French writer died
- 1885 (O.S.) - Velimir Khlebnikov, Russian poet born
- 1903 - Evelyn Waugh, English writer born
- 1907 - John Hewitt, Northern Irish poet born
- 1929 - John Hollander, American poet and literary critic born
- 1938 - Anne Perry, English-born novelist born
- 1973 - Taha Hussein, Egyptian writer died
- 1986 - John Braine, English novelist died
- 1998 - Ted Hughes, English poet died
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Regions: | Australian literature · Indian literature · Persian literature |
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