Portal:Literature
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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 Raven" is a narrative poem by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. It is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow descent into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. The raven, sitting on a bust of Pallas, seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore". The poem makes use of a number of folk and classical references.
Poe claimed to have written the poem very logically and methodically. His intention was to create a poem that would appeal to both critical and popular tastes, as he explains in his 1846 follow-up essay "The Philosophy of Composition". The poem was inspired in part by a talking raven in the novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty by Charles Dickens. Poe borrows the complex rhythm and meter of Elizabeth Barrett's poem "Lady Geraldine's Courtship". The poem makes use of internal rhyme as well as alliteration throughout.
The first printing of "The Raven" was in the January 29, 1845, issue of the New York Evening Mirror. Its publication made Poe widely popular in his lifetime though it did not bring him much financial success. The poem was soon reprinted, parodied, and illustrated. Although critical opinion is divided as to its status, it remains one of the most famous poems ever written.
Selected picture
Crowds among the books on display at the 41st Cairo International Book Fair, February 2009.
Image: Mohd Tarmizi
Did you know ...
... that Henry Denker's play about Sigmund Freud (pictured), A Far Country, premiered on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre in 1961, and that Curd Jürgens played Freud in a 1979 German language production at the Theater in der Josefstadt, Vienna?
... that Lawrence Ferlinghetti's best-known collection of poetry is entitled A Coney Island of the Mind?
... that Cordelia Grey, Kate Brannigan, Bertha Cool, V. I. Warshawski, Tally McGinnis (created by Nancy Sanra), and Precious Ramotswe are female private investigators?
... that Nils Holgersson is a boy who takes great delight in hurting the animals on his father's farm?
... that U.S. literary critic Leslie Fiedler was one of the first to question the notion of a gap between "high art" and popular art", in his 1972 book, Cross the Border—Close the Gap?
... that during her lifetime two plays were written about Mary Frith, an English pickpocket?
... that The Doors took their name from the title of a book by Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, a phrase which was in turn borrowed from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell?
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Quotes
| “ | When a book and a head collide and there is a hollow sound, is that always in the book? | ” |
Original: "Wenn ein Buch und ein Kopf zusammenstoßen und es klingt hohl, ist das allemal im Buche?"
A day in literature
- 1722 - Hryhori Skovoroda, Ukrainian poet born
- 1819 - George Eliot, British novelist born
- 1869 - André Gide, French writer born
- 1877 - Endre Ady, Hungarian poet born
- 1884 - Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, Pakistani biographer born
- 1916 - Jack London, American writer died
- 1932 - William Walker Atkinson, American author died
- 1936 - James Burke, British writer born
- 1947 - Valerie Wilson Wesley, American author born
- 1962 - Victor Pelevin, Russian writer born
- 1963 - Aldous Huxley, British author died
- 1963 - C. S. Lewis, Irish author died
- 1970 - Stel Pavlou, British novelist born
- 1986 - William Bradford Huie, American writer died
- 1993 - Anthony Burgess, British author died
News
- 17 November, 2009 - Jon Meacham's American Lion won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Biography?
- 22 September, 2009 - English poet and playwright Tony Harrison has won the inaugural PEN/Pinter prize. Guardian
- 25 August, 2009 - The Hugo Awards for the best science fiction or fantasy were given, Hugo Award for Best Novel went to Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book.worldswithoutend.com
- 25 August, 2009 - Michael Holroyd was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography A Strange Eventful History.Guardian
- 3 June, 2009 - American author Marilynne Robinson wins the Orange Prize for Fiction for her novel, Home. BBC
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 – Pataphysics – Plays – Poetry – Short stories – Small press publishers – Literature stubs – Theatre – Traditional stories – Writers – Young adult literature – Zines
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- Copyedit: Cotillion (novel), Imperium (novel), Nikolai Minsky, Die Räuber, Tea Classics, The Thin Red Line, More...
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- Start an article: fictography, Belarus literature, gutter rhyme, photobiography, seven by nine squares, working class literature, storycraft, structural exegesis, Structural Irony, Summary Theme, thematic coherence, 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...
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