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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The Duino Elegies are a collection of ten elegies written by the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926). Rilke, who is "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets," began writing the elegies in 1912 while a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis (1855–1934) at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. The poems, 859 lines long in total, were dedicated to the Princess upon their publication in 1923. During this ten-year period, the elegies languished incomplete for long stretches of time as Rilke suffered frequently from severe depression—some of which was caused by the events of World War I and being conscripted into military service. Aside from brief episodes of writing in 1913 and 1915, Rilke did not return to the work until a few years after the war ended. With a sudden, renewed inspiration—writing in a frantic pace he described as a "boundless storm, a hurricane of the spirit"—he completed the collection in February 1922 while staying at Château de Muzot in Veyras, in Switzerland's Rhone Valley. After their publication in 1923 and Rilke's death in 1926, the Duino Elegies were quickly recognized by critics and scholars as his most important work.
Selected excerpt
“ | The pedigree of honey Does not concern the bee ; A clover, any time, to him Is aristocracy. |
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— Emily Dickinson, "The pedigree of Honey" |
More Did you know
- ... that William Blake's character Spectre, which represents unchanging reason in his spiritual mythology, may have been inspired by the poet William Cowper?
- ... that the Pingyao Zhuan, a shenmo fantasy novel written in the Ming Dynasty, is loosely based on a historical revolt?
- ... that the novels of Jane Austen became popular with the public only after the publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869?
- ... that, as a prize for having written "O Armatolos", Bulgarian poet Grigor Parlichev was awarded a laurel wreath by king Otto of Greece?
- ... that the Goosebumps novella One Day at Horrorland was adapted into a two-part television episode, two video games, a comic, and a book series?
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- ... that the poet Fernando Pessoa considered Alberto Caeiro, one of his own heteronyms, to be his master?
- ... that The Inland Whale, by Theodora Kroeber, sought to demonstrate the literary merit of Indigenous American oral traditions?
- ... that campaign literature in the 1894 Montana capital referendum accused Helena residents of copious Manhattan consumption?
- ... 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"?
- ... that in her 2021 book The Origins of Early Christian Literature, Robyn Faith Walsh found that German Romanticists were in part responsible for modern scholarly assumptions about the gospels?
- ... that the biography of Karin Boye, written by Swedish literary critic Margit Abenius, was criticised for the conservative analysis of Boye's homosexuality?
Today in literature
- 1895 - Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand writer born
- 1902 - Halldór Laxness, Icelandic writer born
- 1918 - Maurice Druon, French author born
- 1923 - Avram Davidson, American writer born
- 1948 - Pascal Quignard, French author born
- 1996 - P. L. Travers, Australian author died
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