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...)
General images -
El Señor Presidente (Mister President) is a 1946 novel written in Spanish by Nobel Prize–winning Guatemalan writer and diplomat Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899–1974). A landmark text in Latin American literature, El Señor Presidente explores the nature of political dictatorship and its effects on society. Asturias makes early use of a literary technique now known as magic realism. One of the most notable works of the dictator novel genre, El Señor Presidente developed from an earlier Asturias short story, written to protest social injustice in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in the author's home town.
Although El Señor Presidente does not explicitly identify its setting as early twentieth-century Guatemala, the novel's title character was inspired by the 1898–1920 presidency of Manuel Estrada Cabrera. Asturias began writing the novel in the 1920s and finished it in 1933, but the strict censorship policies of Guatemalan dictatorial governments delayed its publication for thirteen years.
On its eventual publication in Mexico in 1946, El Señor Presidente quickly met with critical acclaim. In 1967, Asturias received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his entire body of work. This international acknowledgment was celebrated throughout Latin America, where it was seen as a recognition of the region's literature as a whole.
Selected excerpt
“ | Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words? | ” |
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray |
More Did you know
- ... that Mei Ze's forgery of Kong Anguo's compilation of the Book of Documents was officially recognized as a Confucian classic for over 1000 years?
- ... that, although Ernest Hemingway wrote many words, he probably didn't write "For sale: baby shoes, never worn"?
- ... that Goodnight Mister Tom, which is an adaptation of the children's novel of the same name, won the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment at the 2013 Olivier Awards?
- ... that the 17th-century English poet Thomas Jordan wrote one poem that was widely anthologized in the 20th century, even though his poetry had been disdained by his contemporaries?
- ... that in his book In Secret Tibet, author Theodore Illion relates how he twice saw what he called "flying lamas" who could supposedly sit on an ear of barley without bending its stalk?
Selected illustration
Did you know (auto-generated) -

- ... that Emelia Quinn argues that "monstrous vegans" have recurred in literature since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?
- ... that a PhD student discovered a lost manuscript of Galen's Peri Alypias in 2005, in "one of the most spectacular finds ever of ancient literature"?
- ... that literary agent Jacques Chambrun sold unauthorized, scandalous excerpts of a Marilyn Monroe memoir to a British tabloid?
- ... that more than 1000 tons of paper were used every year printing car literature for the British Motor Corporation by the in-house Nuffield Press?
- ... 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 despite specializing in literature and serving as a senior editor of the Zhonghua Book Company, historian Zhang Zhenglang never published a single book of his own?
Today in literature
- 1772 - Novalis, German writer born
- 1859 - Jerome K. Jerome, English writer born
- 1873 - Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Lithuanian poet born
- 1886 - Gottfried Benn, German author born
- 1890 - E. E. Smith, American writer born
- 1924 - Jamal Abro, Sindhi writer born
- 1989 - Veniamin Kaverin, Russian writer died
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