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 Author's Farce and the Pleasures of the Town is a play by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding, first performed on 30 March 1730 at the Little Theatre, Haymarket. Written in response to the Theatre Royal's rejection of his earlier plays, The Author's Farce was Fielding's first theatrical success. The Little Theatre allowed Fielding the freedom to experiment, and to alter the traditional comedy genre. The play ran during the early 1730s and was altered for its run starting 21 April 1730 and again in response to the Actor Rebellion of 1733. Throughout its life, the play was coupled with several different plays.
The first and second acts deal with the attempts of the central character, Harry Luckless, to woo his landlady's daughter, and his efforts to make money by writing plays. In the second act, he finishes a puppet theatre play titled The Pleasures of the Town, about the Goddess Nonsense's choice of a husband from allegorical representatives of theatre and other literary genres. After its rejection by one theatre, Luckless's play is staged at another. The third act becomes a play within a play, in which the characters in the puppet play are portrayed by humans. The Author's Farce ends with a merging of the play's and the puppet show's realities.
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“ | It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow. | ” |
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter |
More Did you know
- ... that Wounds of Armenia, the first Armenian novel, was published 10 years after the disappearance of its author Khachatur Abovian?
- ... that James Nelson Barker's play The Indian Princess is largely responsible for the modern version of the Pocahontas story?
- ... that actor Andrew Robinson wrote the novel A Stitch in Time, which is about his character from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?
- ... that Picasso's poetry has lines like "my grandmother's big balls are shining midst the thistles" and that one of his works depicts Franco as a jackbooted phallus?
- ... that the novel Passing by Nella Larsen, with its focus on "jealousy, psychological ambiguity and intrigue" has been described as a "skillfully executed and enduring work of art"?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that in the Forum of Augustus in Rome, elogia were hung on statues of commanders and Augustus's ancestors?
- ... that Bellman's song "Ge rum i Bröllopsgåln din hund!" describes "one of the wildest weddings in Swedish literature"?
- ... that the literary movement of créolie tries to integrate the identity of Réunion with France?
- ... that the literary magazine Adabijoti Soveti was the sole remaining publication in the Jewish-Bukharian language by the time of the switch to the Cyrillic script in 1939–1940?
- ... that The Tale of Genji's Kaoru Genji has been called literature's first antihero?
- ... that Romanian literary scholar Dan Simonescu, who edited a chronicle dealing with the reign of Michael the Brave, had to delete any mention of Michael having "all the Jews murdered"?
Today in literature
- 1692 - Louis Racine, French poet born
- 1692 - Gédéon Tallemant des Réaux, French writer died
- 1833 - Jonas Lie, Norwegian author born
- 1846 - Alexander Chavchavadze, Georgian poet and general died
- 1880 - Robert Musil, Austrian novelist born
- 1910 - Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Italian patriot and writer died
- 1921 - James Jones, American writer born
- 1952 - Michael Cunningham, American writer born
- 1984 - Gastón Suárez, Bolivian novelist and dramatist died
- 2000 - L. Sprague de Camp, American writer died
- 2001 - Anthony Shaffer, English dramatist died
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