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 Duino Elegies are a collection of ten elegies written by the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926). Rilke, who is "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets," began writing the elegies in 1912 while a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis (1855–1934) at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. The poems, 859 lines long in total, were dedicated to the Princess upon their publication in 1923. During this ten-year period, the elegies languished incomplete for long stretches of time as Rilke suffered frequently from severe depression—some of which was caused by the events of World War I and being conscripted into military service. Aside from brief episodes of writing in 1913 and 1915, Rilke did not return to the work until a few years after the war ended. With a sudden, renewed inspiration—writing in a frantic pace he described as a "boundless storm, a hurricane of the spirit"—he completed the collection in February 1922 while staying at Château de Muzot in Veyras, in Switzerland's Rhone Valley. After their publication in 1923 and Rilke's death in 1926, the Duino Elegies were quickly recognized by critics and scholars as his most important work.
Selected excerpt
“ | O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet. |
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— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet |
More Did you know
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- ... that the works of Georgette Heyer include her first novel The Black Moth (1921), which she based on a story she wrote for her haemophiliac younger brother?
- ... that British horror novelist Simon Clark wrote a sequel to John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids?
- ... that Cut Like Wound is Indian novelist Anita Nair's first work of detective fiction?
- ... that some of the most popular nautical fiction works, including those about Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey, were based upon the real adventures of the "sea wolf" – Lord Cochrane?
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- ... that the lands of the Shirvanshah served as the focal point for Persian literature during the 12th century?
- ... that in the Forum of Augustus in Rome, elogia were hung on statues of commanders and Augustus's ancestors?
- ... 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 Rudaki is acknowledged as the founder of New Persian poetry in Iran and the father of Tajik literature in Tajikistan?
- ... 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?
- ... that Malaysian poet Wong Phui Nam wrote in English, despite feeling no connection to the English literary tradition?
Today in literature
- 1821 - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Russian poet born
- 1824 - George MacDonald, British writer born
- 1830 - Emily Dickinson, American poet born
- 1851 - Melvil Dewey, American librarian born
- 1870 - Pierre Louÿs, French author born
- 1891 - Nelly Sachs, German-born writer born
- 1907 - Rumer Godden, British writer born
- 1920 - Clarice Lispector, Ukrainian-Brazilian writer born
- 1936 - Luigi Pirandello, Italian writer died
- 1946 - Damon Runyon, American writer died
- 1951 - Algernon Blackwood, British writer died
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