Portal:Literature
The Literary Portal
The history of literature begins with the history of writing, in the Bronze Age of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, although the oldest literary texts date to a full millennium after the invention of writing, to the late 3rd millennium BC. The earliest literary authors known by name are Ptahhotep and Enheduanna, dating to ca. the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, respectively. More about Literature...
Selected article
The nature fakers controversy was an early 20th-century American literary debate highlighting the conflict between science and sentiment in popular nature writing. Following a period of growing interest in the natural world beginning in the late 19th century, a new literary movement, in which the natural world was depicted in a compassionate rather than realistic light, began to take shape. Works such as Ernest Thompson Seton's Wild Animals I Have Known (1898) and William J. Long's School of the Woods (1902) popularized this new genre and emphasized sympathetic and individualistic animal characters.
In March 1903, naturalist and writer John Burroughs published an article entitled "Real and Sham Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly. Lambasting writers such as Seton, Long, and Charles G. D. Roberts for their seemingly fantastical representations of wildlife, he also denounced the booming genre of realistic animal fiction as "yellow journalism of the woods". Burroughs' targets responded in defense of their work in various publications, as did their supporters, and the resulting controversy raged in the public press for nearly six years. The debate involved important American literary, environmental and political figures of the day. Dubbed the "War of the Naturalists" by The New York Times, it showcased seemingly irreconcilable contemporary views of the natural world; while some nature writers of the day argued as to the veracity of their examples of anthropomorphic wild animals, others questioned an animal's ability to adapt, learn, teach, and reason.
Selected picture
American naturalist and essayist John Burroughs.
Image: J. Edward B. Greene
Did you know ...
... that "My Last Duchess" is a much anthologized dramatic monologue by Victorian poet Robert Browning (pictured), and that the deceased duchess of the title is most likely based on Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici (1544-1562)?
...that the tragic ending of Shakespeare's King Lear was found to be so distasteful that it was replaced on stage for over 150 years by Nahum Tate's adaptation, with a happy ending and a love story?
... that Matt Beaumont's e (2000) is a novel consisting entirely of inter-office e-mails?
... that the Loeb Classical Library, named after American banker and philanthropist James Loeb, is a series of books, today published by the Harvard University Press, which presents important works of ancient Greek and Latin Literature in a way designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience, by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each left-hand leaf, and a fairly literal translation on the facing page?
... that Equus is a 1973 stage play by Peter Shaffer about a 17-year-old boy who is brought to a mental health facility for treatment by a psychiatrist because he has blinded six horses with a spike?
... that Carmen Laforet, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, Álvaro Cunqueiro, Lucía Etxebarría, and Eduardo Lago are recipients of the Premio Nadal?
... that fl. is used by (literary) historians as an abbreviation for "floruit" (Latin for "flourished"), to indicate periods when persons were influential, and that it is normally used only when dates of birth or death are unknown?
... that Tituba, the first woman accused of being a witch during the Salem witch trials of 1692, is the protagonist of the novel, Moi, Tituba, sorcière noire de Salem (1986) by Maryse Condé, and that she also features prominently in the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller?
Topics
New pages
Quotes
| “ | There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away, |
” |
A day in literature
- 1626 - John Aubrey, English antiquary and writer born
- 1912 - Irving Layton, Canadian poet born
- 1922 - Jack Kerouac, American writer born
- 1925 - Harry Harrison, American author born
- 2003 - Howard Fast, American author died
News
- 6 October, 2011 - Nobel prize in literature goes to Tomas Tranströmer.Guardian
- 6 September, 2011 - Shortlist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is announced. themanbookerprize.com
- 19 April, 2011 - A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan wins the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.Guardian
Categories
Subcategories of Literature:
Anthropomorphism – Books – Children's books – Essays – Essayists – Fiction – Genres – Gothic writing – LGBT literature – Literary awards – Literary characters – Literary concepts – Literary genres – Literary magazines – Literary movements – Literature by nationality – Literature in English – Medieval literature – Minimalism – Narratology – Novels – Plays – Poetry – Short stories – Small press publishers – Literature stubs – Theatre – Traditional stories – Writers – Young adult literature – Zines
WikiProjects
WikiProjects connected with literature:
Things you can do
- Copyedit: Cotillion (novel), Imperium (novel), Nikolai Minsky, Die Räuber, Tea Classics, The Thin Red Line, More...
- Wikify: More...
- Merge: More...
- add images Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of writers,Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of publications
- Start an article: Belarus literature, gutter rhyme, seven by nine squares, working class literature, storycraft, structural exegesis, Structural Irony, Summary Theme, threnos More...
- Expand: alter ego, English studies, Verisimilitude, Flash prose, German literature of the Baroque period, Identification, composite character, hexameter, internal rhyme, hypertextuality, Midnight Magic, Modernist poetry, high burlesque, Swahili literature, The Freedom Writers Diary, More...
Related portals
Associated Wikimedia
- What are portals?
- List of portals
- Featured portals
