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
“ | It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture—a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. | ” |
— Edgar Allan Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart" |
More Did you know
- ... that the John Steinbeck play adaptation Of Mice and Men debuted on Broadway while the novel of the same name was still on the best seller lists?
- ... that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Eminent Characters series includes: a lawyer, a speaker, a Unitarian, a general, a rebel, a betrayer, a poet, an actress, a philosopher, a friend, a playwright and a lord?
- ... that The Insider, a roman à clef, was Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao's first novel?
- ... that a possible source for the poem The Fox, the Wolf and the Husbandman, by the 15th-century Scottish poet Robert Henryson, was Aesop's Fables as published by William Caxton?
- ... that Maria Konopnicka's poem Rota became so popular it was seen as an unofficial anthem of Poland?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Super Mario 64 has been the subject of medical literature showing a correlation between habitual playing of 3D platformers and increased grey matter in the brain?
- ... that Robert Weiner taught AP English Literature while coaching football at Henry B. Plant High School?
- ... 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 literary critic Leslie Fiedler called the novel Band of Angels "operatic in the worst sense of the word"?
- ... that Peter Demetz, who taught German literature at Yale University from 1956 to 1991, was born in Prague where he was persecuted under the Nazis and escaped the Communist regime in 1949?
- ... 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?
Today in literature
- 1711 - Jupiter Hammon, American writer born
- 1719 - Jacques Cazotte, French writer born
- 1813 - Georg Büchner, German playwright born
- 1898 - Simon Vestdijk, Dutch writer born
- 1903 - Nathanael West, American writer born
- 1915 - Arthur Miller, American playwright born
- 1917 - Sumner Locke Elliott, Australian novelist born
- 1930 - Jimmy Breslin, American writer born
- 1931 - Ernst Hinterberger, Austrian writer born
- 1973 - Ingeborg Bachmann, Austrian writer died
- 1979 - S. J. Perelman, American writer died
- 1981 - Albert Cohen, Swiss author died
- 2005 - Ba Jin, Chinese writer died
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