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 prose, fiction, drama, poetry, and including both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, also known as orature much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, 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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Selected work

Angelou uses her autobiography to explore subjects such as identity, rape, racism, and literacy. She also writes in new ways about women's lives in a male-dominated society. Maya, the younger version of Angelou and the book's central character, has been called "a symbolic character for every black girl growing up in America". Angelou's description of being raped as an eight-year-old child overwhelms the book, although it is presented briefly in the text. Rape is used as a metaphor for the suffering of her race. Another metaphor, that of a bird struggling to escape its cage, is a central image throughout the work.
Selected biographies -
Selected excerpt
“ | The entire world hung for months over this obscure problem—the most obscure, it seems to me, that has ever challenged the perspicacity of our police or taxed the conscience of our judges. The solution of the problem baffled everybody who tried to find it. It was like a dramatic rebus with which old Europe and new America alike became fascinated. That is, in truth—I am permitted to say, because there cannot be any author's vanity in all this, since I do nothing more than transcribe facts on which an exceptional documentation enables me to throw a new light—that is because, in truth, I do not know that, in the domain of reality or imagination, one can discover or recall to mind anything comparable, in its mystery, with the natural mystery of "The Yellow Room." | ” |
— Gaston Leroux, The Mystery of the Yellow Room |
More Did you know
- ... that in his 2013 book, Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir, food personality Eddie Huang relates his past activities, which include practising law, performing stand-up comedy, and dealing marijuana?
- ... that the Indonesian novel Atheist was decried by religious figures, Marxist–Leninists, and anarcho-nihilists?
- ... that one of the essays in William Gibson's new non-fiction collection Distrust That Particular Flavor caused Wired magazine to be banned in Singapore?
- ... that American poet Peter Filkins was the first to translate Czech writer H. G. Adler's novels, described by The New Yorker as "modernist masterpieces", into English?
- ... that it is widely suggested that the publication of the novel Oromay, depicting the Eritrean War, led to the disappearance of its author, Baalu Girma?
Selected illustration
Did you know (auto-generated) -

- ... that Sheila Egoff, Canada's first professor of children's literature, returned to her library work immediately after retirement?
- ... that The Man Without Talent is an I-novel, a genre of semi-autobiographical confessional literature that has been popular in Japan since the early twentieth century?
- ... that a study of Anglo-Saxon literature begun by Bernard Pitt in 1914 was completed by a colleague after Pitt was killed in the First World War?
- ... that the exclusive secret society Hamilton House from the television show Gossip Girl was based on St. Anthony Hall, a social and literary fraternity?
- ... that Swedish writer Hedda Anderson began her literary career at the age of 58, following her husband's death in 1888?
- ... that the Museum of Literature Ireland is branded MoLI in homage to Molly Bloom of James Joyce's Ulysses, of which it holds "Copy No. 1"?
Today in literature
- 1661 - Agustín Moreto y Cavana, Spanish playwright died
- 1676 - Jean Desmarets, French writer died
- 1754 - Friedrich von Hagedorn, German poet died
- 1806 - Charlotte Turner Smith, English poet and novelist died
- 1818 (O.S.) - Ivan Turgenev, Russian writer born
- 1879 - Marie Roch Louis Reybaud, French writer died
- 1885 (O.S.) - Velimir Khlebnikov, Russian poet born
- 1903 - Evelyn Waugh, English writer born
- 1907 - John Hewitt, Northern Irish poet born
- 1929 - John Hollander, American poet and literary critic born
- 1938 - Anne Perry, English-born novelist born
- 1973 - Taha Hussein, Egyptian writer died
- 1986 - John Braine, English novelist died
- 1998 - Ted Hughes, English poet died
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Create: | Requested literature articles · Requested photographs of writers · Requested photographs of publications |
Expand: | Literature stubs · Writer stubs · Start class literature articles · C class literature articles · Literature lists |
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More: | Open tasks at WikiProject Literature |
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Authors: | Honoré de Balzac · Roald Dahl · William Shakespeare |
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Regions: | Australian literature · Indian literature · Persian literature |
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