Introduction
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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...)
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Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays.
Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. Its plot is based on an Italian tale, translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but, to expand the plot, developed supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris. Believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first published in a quarto version in 1597.
Shakespeare's use of his poetic dramatic structure, especially effects such as switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension, his expansion of minor characters, and his use of sub-plots to embellish the story, has been praised as an early sign of his dramatic skill. The play ascribes different poetic forms to different characters, sometimes changing the form as the character develops. Romeo, for example, grows more adept at the sonnet over the course of the play.
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 Danilo Kiš's 1965 novel Garden, Ashes mixes fact and fiction, with both the narrator and the author having lost their fathers in the Holocaust?
- ... that in Lady of Sherwood, Jennifer Roberson chose to write about the demise of Richard I because the "death of a popular monarch always provide fodder for novelists"?
- ... that blind poet María Josefa Mujía was Bolivia's first woman writer after its independence?
- ... that De Scheepsjongens van Bontekoe, the 1924 Dutch children's book based on a real-life shipwreck in 1618, has sold more than 250,000 copies?
- ... that Iosif Vulcan changed the name of a young literary debutant to Mihai Eminescu, later Romania's national poet?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
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- ... that Henry A. Henry brought an extensive library of Jewish literature when he emigrated to the United States in 1849?
- ... 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 Peter Demetz, who taught German literature at Yale University from 1956 to 1991, was born in Prague where he was persecuted under the Nazis and escaped the Communist regime in 1949?
- ... that Polish 1960 sci-fi novel Wielka, większa i największa was very influential for Polish young-adult literature?
- ... that campaign literature in the 1894 Montana capital referendum accused Helena residents of copious Manhattan consumption?
- ... that Alexandre Dumas's travel book Le Corricolo, published in 1843, contains one of the earliest literary accounts of Neapolitan pizza?
Today in literature
- 1752 – Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, German writer born
- 1836 – Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Spanish poet born
- 1856 – Heinrich Heine, German writer died
- 1862 – Mori Ōgai, Japanese novelist and poet born
- 1863 – Fyodor Sologub, Russian novelist and poet born
- 1864 – Banjo Paterson, Australian poet born
- 1903 – Sadegh Hedayat, Iranian writer born
- 1912 – Andre Norton, American author born
- 1924 – Margaret Truman, American novelist born
- 1930 – Ruth Rendell, English writer born
- 1955 – Mo Yan, Chinese novelist born
- 1970 – Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israeli writer died
- 1996 – Hervé Bazin, French writer died
- 2007 – Jurga Ivanauskaitė, Lithuanian writer died
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