Portal:Literature

---

The Literature Portal

Introduction

The Library of the Palais Bourbon in Paris

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 -

The following are images from various literature-related articles on Wikipedia.

• 
  The character which means "poetry", in the ancient Chinese Great Seal script style. The modern character is 詩/诗 (shī). (from History of poetry)
• 
  A mother reads to her children in a mid- to late 19th century lithograph by Jessie Willcox Smith. (from Children's literature)
• 
  The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from Tang dynasty China, i.e. 868 CE, the oldest known dated printed book in the world (British Library) (from History of books)
• 
  1900 edition of the controversial The Story of Little Black Sambo (from Children's literature)
• 
  Hugo Ball performing at the Cabaret Voltaire (from Performance poetry)
• 
  Galway Kinnell performing a poetic piece in Vermont (from Performance poetry)
• 
  A Tagore illustration of a Hindu myth (from Children's literature)
• 
  Illustration from the Codex Manesse, a German book from the Middle Ages (from History of books)
• 
  A late 18th-century reprint of Orbis Pictus by Comenius, the first children's picture book. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Gabriel García Márquez, one of the most renowned Latin American writers (from Latin American literature)
• 
  A picture by Gustave Doré of Mother Goose reading written (literary) fairy tales (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Selma Lagerlöf, the first female author awarded the prize. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  Kings' Fairy Tale, 1909, by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (from Fairy tale)
• 
  A Sumerian clay tablet, currently housed in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, inscribed with the text of the poem Inanna and Ebih by the priestess Enheduanna, the first author whose name is known
• 
  A Chinese bamboo book, The Art of War, commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor in 18th century China (from History of books)
• 
  12-metre-high (40 ft) sculpture of a stack of books at the Berlin Walk of Ideas, commemorating the invention of modern book printing (from History of books)
• 
  Goethe's Italian Journey between September 1786 and May 1788 (from Travel literature)
• 
  Illustration from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 pirate adventure Treasure Island (from Children's literature)
• 
  Wole Soyinka, the first African writer awarded the prize. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  Walter Crane's chromolithograph illustration for The Frog Prince, 1874. (from Children's literature)
• 
  The European fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in a painting by Carl Larsson in 1881. (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Cutlery for children. Detail showing fairy-tale scenes: Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel. (from Fairy tale)
• 
  The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore illus. by Nandalal Bose, Macmillan 1913 (from Children's literature)
• 
  The New England Primer (from Children's literature)
• 
  H. O. Tanager performs at a bookstore in Boise, Idaho. (from Performance poetry)
• 
  European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books)
• 
  Statue of Minnie the Minx, a character from The Beano. Launched in 1938, the comic is known for its anarchic humour, with Dennis the Menace appearing on the cover. (from Children's literature)
• 
  The scene in Botticelli's Madonna of the Book (1480) reflects the presence of books in the houses of richer people in his time. (from History of books)
• 
  French author Albert Camus was the first African-born writer to receive the award. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  The Nobel diploma awarded to Hermann Hesse in 1946. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  The Swedish Academy's permanent secretary Peter Englund at the announcement of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  Pages from the 1819 edition of Kinder- und Haus-Märchen by the Brothers Grimm (from Children's literature)
• 
  Sculpture of Alfonso Reyes writer of influential pieces of Mexican surrealism. (from Latin American literature)
• 
  Children's books author Maria Elena Walsh in 1952. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Octavio Paz helped to define modern poetry and the Mexican personality. (from Latin American literature)
• 
  A twentieth-century copyright imprint from McLoughlin Bros that features three rams and the copyright year, 1903 (from History of books)
• 
  European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books)
• 
  Peruvian poet César Vallejo, considered by Thomas Merton "the greatest universal poet since Dante" (from Latin American literature)
• 
  An author portrait of Jean Miélot writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. (from History of books)
• 
  Number of children's books titles published by the trade sector in 2020 (from Children's literature)
• 
  Ivan Bilibin (1876–1942)'s illustration of the Russian fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Illustration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865 (from Children's literature)
• 
  Handwritten notes by Christopher Columbus on a Latin edition of The Travels of Marco Polo (from Travel literature)
• 
  Roberto Bolaño is considered to have had the greatest United States impact of any post-Boom author (from Latin American literature)
• 
  Jikji, Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters, the earliest known book printed with movable metal type, 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. (from History of books)
• 
  Estimated medieval output of manuscripts in terms of copies (from Medieval literature)
• 
  The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books)
• 
  Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books)
• 
  Postal stamp of Russia celebrating children's books. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Chinese Bookseller, illustration, c. 1824 (from History of books)
• 
  The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) is a canonical piece of children's literature and one of the best-selling books ever published. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Dresden Codex (page 49) (from History of books)
• 
  Poet Charles G. D. Roberts belonged to an informal group known as the Confederation Poets. (from Canadian literature)
• 
  Father Frost acts as a donor in the Russian fairy tale Father Frost, testing the heroine before bestowing riches upon her (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Two people dressed up in costumes inspired by Willy Wonka (from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and the Hatter (from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) in London (from Children's literature)
• 
  Natias Neutert performing Diogenes Synopsis as at Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, 1986 (from Performance poetry)
• 
  An early Chinese poetics, the Kǒngzǐ Shīlùn (孔子詩論), discussing the Shijing (Classic of Poetry) (from History of poetry)
• 
  The first page of Beowulf (from Medieval literature)
• 
  Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, London (from Children's literature)
• 
  Short story writer Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. (from Canadian literature)
• 
  Hemingway's telegram in 1954 (The academy has alternately used for Literature and in Literature over the years, the latter becoming the norm today.) (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  Cover of the Argentine children's magazine Billiken N° 1 (1919) (from Children's literature)
• 
  Gabrielle Roy was a notable French Canadian author. (from Canadian literature)
• 
  The Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik van Loon, 1st Newbery Award winner (from Children's literature)
• 
  Calliope, the muse of heroic poetry (from History of poetry)
• 
  Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books)
• 
  Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books)
• 
  Rudyard Kipling, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  The former Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke (2015) (from Canadian literature)
• 
  John Newbery's A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, originally published in 1744 (from Children's literature)
• 
  European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books)
• 
  The philosopher Confucius was influential in the developed approach to poetry and ancient music theory. (from History of poetry)
• 
  Statuta Mutine Reformata, 1420–1485; parchment codex bound in wood and leather with brass plaques worked the corners and in the center, with clasps. (from Medieval literature)
• 
  Hop-o'-My-Thumb and the ogre in an 1865 illustration (from Fairy tale)
• 
  John Bauer's illustration of trolls and a princess from a collection of Swedish fairy tales (from Fairy tale)
• 
  A poet with a few enraptured fans (from Performance poetry)
• 
  The Violet Fairy Book (1906)
• 
  Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books)
• 
  An early Mexican hornbook pictured in Tuer's History of the Horn-Book, 1896. (from Children's literature)
• 
  In 1901, French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907) was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection, and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect." (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  Beauty and the Beast, illustration by Warwick Goble (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Statue of C. S. Lewis in front of the wardrobe from his Narnia book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (from Children's literature)
• 
  A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books)
• 
  The oldest known love poem. Sumerian terracotta tablet#2461 from Nippur, Iraq. Ur III period, 2037–2029 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul (from History of poetry)
• 
  J. K. Rowling reads from her novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (from Children's literature)

Selected work

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

---

"Ulysses" is a poem in blank verse by the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), written in 1833 and published in 1842 in his well-received second volume of poetry. An oft-quoted poem, it is popularly used to illustrate the dramatic monologue form. Ulysses describes, to an unspecified audience, his discontent and restlessness upon returning to his kingdom, Ithaca, after his far-ranging travels. Facing old age, Ulysses yearns to explore again, despite his reunion with his wife Penelope and son Telemachus.

The character of Ulysses (in Greek, Odysseus) has been explored widely in literature. The adventures of Odysseus were first recorded in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (c. 800–700 BC), and Tennyson draws on Homer's narrative in the poem. Most critics, however, find that Tennyson's Ulysses recalls Dante's Ulisse in his Inferno (c. 1320). In Dante's re-telling, Ulisse is condemned to hell among the false counsellors, both for his pursuit of knowledge beyond human bounds and for his adventures in disregard of his family.

For much of this poem's history, readers viewed Ulysses as resolute and heroic, admiring him for his determination "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield". The view that Tennyson intended a heroic character is supported by his statements about the poem, and by the events in his life—the death of his closest friend—that prompted him to write it. In the twentieth century, some new interpretations of "Ulysses" highlighted potential ironies in the poem. They argued, for example, that Ulysses wishes to selfishly abandon his kingdom and family, and they questioned more positive assessments of Ulysses' character by demonstrating how he resembles flawed protagonists in earlier literature.

Selected biographies -

Featured articles are displayed here.

---

• 

  

  Pound photographed in 1913 by Alvin Langdon Coburn

  
  
  
  Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a collaborator in Fascist Italy and the Salò Republic during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his 800-page epic poem The Cantos (c. 1917–1962).
  
  Pound's contribution to poetry began in the early 20th century with his role in developing Imagism, a movement stressing precision and economy of language. Working in London as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, he helped discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as H. D., Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce. He was responsible for the 1914 serialization of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the 1915 publication of Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and the serialization from 1918 of Joyce's Ulysses. Hemingway wrote in 1932 that, for poets born in the late 19th or early 20th century, not to be influenced by Pound would be "like passing through a great blizzard and not feeling its cold". (Full article...)
• 

  

  17th-century depiction of Murasaki by Tosa Mitsuoki

  
  Murasaki Shikibu (紫式部, 'Lady Murasaki'; c. 973 – c. 1014 or 1025) was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. She was best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, widely considered to be one of the world's first novels, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki Shikibu is a descriptive name; her personal name is unknown, but she may have been Fujiwara no Kaoruko (藤原香子), who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting.
  
  Heian women were traditionally excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki, raised in her erudite father's household, showed a precocious aptitude for the Chinese classics and managed to acquire fluency. She married in her mid-to-late twenties and gave birth to a daughter, Daini no Sanmi. Her husband died after two years of marriage. It is uncertain when she began to write The Tale of Genji, but it was probably while she was married or shortly after she was widowed. In about 1005, she was invited to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court by Fujiwara no Michinaga, probably because of her reputation as a writer. She continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work. After five or six years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Scholars differ on the year of her death; although most agree on 1014, others have suggested she was alive in 1025. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Meeker in 1921

  
  Ezra Morgan Meeker (December 29, 1830 – December 3, 1928) was an American pioneer who traveled the Oregon Trail by ox-drawn wagon as a young man, migrating from Iowa to the Pacific Coast. Later in life he worked to memorialize the Trail, repeatedly retracing the trip of his youth. Once known as the "Hop King of the World", he was the first mayor of Puyallup, Washington.
  
  Meeker was born in Butler County, Ohio, to Jacob and Phoebe Meeker. His family relocated to Indiana when he was a boy. He married Eliza Jane Sumner in 1851; the following year the couple, with their newborn son and Ezra's brother, set out for the Oregon Territory, where land could be claimed and settled on. Although they endured hardships on the Trail in the journey of nearly six months, the entire party survived the trek. Meeker and his family briefly stayed near Portland, then journeyed north to live in the Puget Sound region. They settled at what is now Puyallup in 1862, where Meeker grew hops for use in brewing beer. By 1887, his business had made him wealthy, and his wife built a large mansion for the family. In 1891, an infestation of hop aphids destroyed his crops and took much of his fortune. He later tried his hand at a number of ventures, and made four largely unsuccessful trips to the Klondike, taking groceries and hoping to profit from the gold rush. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Cabinet card of W. S. Gilbert in about 1880 by Elliott & Fry

  
  
  
  Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen comic operas. The most famous of these include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. The popularity of these works was supported for over a century by year-round performances of them, in Britain and abroad, by the repertory company that Gilbert, Sullivan and their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte founded, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. These Savoy operas are still frequently performed in the English-speaking world and beyond.
  
  Gilbert's creative output included over 75 plays and libretti, and numerous short stories, poems and lyrics, both comic and serious. After brief careers as a government clerk and a lawyer, Gilbert began to focus, in the 1860s, on writing light verse, including his Bab Ballads, short stories, theatre reviews and illustrations, often for Fun magazine. He also began to write burlesques and his first comic plays, developing a unique absurdist, inverted style that would later be known as his "topsy-turvy" style. He also developed a realistic method of stage direction and a reputation as a strict theatre director. In the 1870s, Gilbert wrote 40 plays and libretti, including his German Reed Entertainments, several blank-verse "fairy comedies", some serious plays, and his first five collaborations with Sullivan: Thespis, Trial by Jury, The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance. In the 1880s, Gilbert focused on the Savoy operas, including Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard and The Gondoliers. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Title page of the first edition of Wright's Certaine Errors in Navigation (1599)

  
  Edward Wright (baptised 8 October 1561; died November 1615) was an English mathematician and cartographer noted for his book Certaine Errors in Navigation (1599; 2nd ed., 1610), which for the first time explained the mathematical basis of the Mercator projection by building on the works of Pedro Nunes, and set out a reference table giving the linear scale multiplication factor as a function of latitude, calculated for each minute of arc up to a latitude of 75°. This was in fact a table of values of the integral of the secant function, and was the essential step needed to make practical both the making and the navigational use of Mercator charts.
  
  Wright was born at Garveston in Norfolk and educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow from 1587 to 1596. In 1589 the college granted him leave after Elizabeth I requested that he carry out navigational studies with a raiding expedition organised by the Earl of Cumberland to the Azores to capture Spanish galleons. The expedition's route was the subject of the first map to be prepared according to Wright's projection, which was published in Certaine Errors in 1599. The same year, Wright created and published the first world map produced in England and the first to use the Mercator projection since Gerardus Mercator's original 1569 map. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Photo by Tee Corinne, 1983

  
  Ann Weldy (born September 15, 1932), better known by her pen name Ann Bannon, is an American author who, from 1957 to 1962, wrote five lesbian pulp fiction novels known as The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. The books' enduring popularity and impact on lesbian identity has earned her the title "Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction". Bannon was a young housewife trying to address her own issues of sexuality when she was inspired to write her first novel. Her subsequent books featured four characters who reappeared throughout the series, including her eponymous heroine, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the archetype of a butch lesbian. The majority of her characters mirrored people she knew, but their stories reflected a life she did not feel she was able to live. Despite her traditional upbringing and role in married life, her novels defied conventions for romance stories and depictions of lesbians by addressing complex homosexual relationships.
  
  Her books shaped lesbian identity for lesbians and heterosexuals alike, but Bannon was mostly unaware of their impact. She stopped writing in 1962. Later, she earned a doctorate in linguistics and became an academic. She endured a difficult marriage for 27 years and, as she separated from her husband in the 1980s, her books were republished; she was stunned to learn of their influence on society. They were released again between 2001 and 2003 and were adapted as an award-winning Off-Broadway production. They are taught in women's and LGBT studies courses, and Bannon has received numerous awards for pioneering lesbian and gay literature. She has been described as "the premier fictional representation of US lesbian life in the fifties and sixties", and it has been said that her books "rest on the bookshelf of nearly every even faintly literate Lesbian". (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Revised daguerreotype taken in 1842

  
  Honoré de Balzac (/ˈbælzæk/ BAL-zak, more commonly US: /ˈbɔːl-/ BAWL-; French: [ɔnɔʁe d(ə) balzak]; born Honoré Balzac; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus.
  
  Owing to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous writers, including the novelists Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, and Henry James, and filmmakers François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. Many of Balzac's works have been made into films and continue to inspire other writers. James called him "really the father of us all." (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (UK: /ˈwʊlstənkrɑːft/ WUUL-stən-krahft, US: /-kræft/ -⁠kraft; née Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.
  
  Mary's mother died 11 days after giving birth to her. She was raised by her father, who provided her with a rich informal education, encouraging her to adhere to his own anarchist political theories. When she was four, her father married a neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont, with whom Mary had a troubled relationship. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  William Shakespeare (c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" or simply "the Bard". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
  
  Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Angelou in 1993

  
  Maya Angelou (/ˈændʒəloʊ/ ^ⓘ AN-jə-loh; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou's series of seven autobiographies focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
  
  She became a poet and writer after a string of odd jobs during her young adulthood. These included fry cook, sex worker, nightclub performer, Porgy and Bess cast member, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator, and correspondent in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. Angelou was also an actress, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Beginning in the 1990s, she made approximately 80 appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. (Full article...)

Selected excerpt

“ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. ” — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

More Did you know

• ... that although J. R. R. Tolkien translated the Old English poem Beowulf in the 1920s, he did not like the result so it was published only posthumously in 2014 as Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary?
• ... that the 1928 Hindi novel Nirmala uses fiction to promote social reform of the dowry system in India?
• ... that although Crown Duel's fictional setting of Sartorias-deles is most like New Zealand, its customs and fashions were inspired by the court of Louis XIV?
• ... that Crown Princess Yaza Datu Kalaya is the subject of some of the "most beautiful poems in Burmese literature" by her nephew and husband Natshinnaung?
• ... that as a young girl, Margaret George became interested in Cleopatra because they both had dark hair, and later wrote a best-selling novel about her?

Selected illustration

• 
  Divine Comedy

  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  An engraving of Charon, in Greek mythology the ferryman of Hades who carried souls of the newly deceased across the River Styx that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. This illustration is from French engraver Gustave Doré's 1857 set of illustrations for Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, an Italian epic poem depicting an allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife. Here, Charon is shown coming to ferry souls across the river Acheron to Hell. The caption is from Henry Francis Cary's translation, from which this particular copy is taken:
  
  And, lo! toward us in a bark
  Comes on an old man, hoary white with eld,
  Crying "Woe to you, wicked spirits!"
• 
  Jeeves

  Illustration: Unknown; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  Jeeves is a fictional character in a series of comedic short stories and novels by English author P. G. Wodehouse, in which he is depicted as the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie Wooster. First appearing in the short story "Extricating Young Gussie" in 1915, Jeeves continued to feature in Wodehouse's work until his last completed novel, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974). He also appeared in numerous films and television series, portrayed by such actors as Arthur Treacher, Michael Aldridge, and Dennis Price. The name and character of Jeeves have come to be identified with the quintessential valet or butler.
• 
  The Song of Los

  Illustration: William Blake

  The Song of Los is an epic poem by William Blake first published in 1795 and considered part of his prophetic books. The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia": in the first section Blake catalogues the decline of morality in Europe, which he blames on both the African slave trade and enlightenment philosophers, whereas in the second section he describes a worldwide revolution, urged by the eponymous Los.
  
  The illustration here is from the book's frontispiece and shows Urizen presiding over the decline of morality.
• 
  The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby

  Artist: Jessie Willcox Smith; Restoration: ErikTheBikeMan

  Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, a character named after the Golden Rule, from The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, a children's novel by Charles Kingsley. Published in 1863, the book was extremely popular in England, and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades. The book had been intended in part as a satire, a tract against child labour, as well as a serious critique of the closed-minded approaches of many scientists of the day in their response to Charles Darwin's ideas on evolution.
• 
  Œnone

  Illustration: William Edward Frank Britten; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  Œnone is a poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1829. Inspired by the Greek mythological figure Oenone, first wife of Paris of Troy, the poem is a dramatic monologue following the lead-up to the Trojan War and the war itself. This illustration, by William Edward Frank Britten, is accompanied by the lines "O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, / Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die".
• 
  "The Queen of Hearts"

  Restoration: Lise Broer

  William Wallace Denslow's illustration of the poem "The Queen of Hearts" from a 1901 issue of Mother Goose. The poem was originally published in 1782 as part of a set of four playing card based poems, but proved to be far more popular than the others. By 1785 it had been set to music, and it forms the basis of the plot of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Chapter XI: "Who Stole the Tarts?" Although it was originally published in a magazine for adults, it is now best known as a nursery rhyme.
• 
  The Sleeping Beauty

  Illustration: W. E. F. Britten; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  "The Sleeping Beauty" is a poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and published in 1830; it was later expanded and published in 1842 as "The Day-Dream". Based on the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, the poem (as with many of Tennyson's adaptations of existing literary works) focuses on a single aspect of the story, the appearance of the eponymous character as she sleeps.
  
  This illustration by W. E. F. Britten was published in 1901 to accompany a reprinting of "The Sleeping Beauty". It accompanies the poem's final lines: "She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells / A perfect form in perfect rest."
• 
  The Hunting of the Snark

  Illustration credit: Henry Holiday, after Lewis Carroll; restored by Adam Cuerden

  The Hunting of the Snark is a poem composed by the English writer Lewis Carroll between 1874 and 1876, typically characterised as a nonsense poem. The plot follows a crew of ten who cross the ocean to hunt the Snark, which may turn out to be a highly dangerous Boojum. This is the second of Henry Holiday's original illustrations for the first edition of the poem. It introduces some of the crew, whose names all start with "B"; the Bellman and Baker are on the upper deck, with the Barrister seated in the background; below are the Billiard-marker, the Banker and the Broker, with the maker of Bonnets and Hoods visible behind.
• 
  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

  Artist: William Wallace Denslow

  An illustration from the first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, depicting the scene where Dorothy meets the Cowardly Lion, the first time the four major characters of the novel come together. The book was originally published in 1900 and has since been reprinted countless times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of both the 1902 Broadway musical and the extremely popular, highly acclaimed 1939 film version. Thanks in part to the film it is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. Its initial success, and the success of the popular 1902 musical Baum adapted from his story, led to his writing and having published thirteen more Oz books.
• 
  Humpty Dumpty

  Restoration: Jujutacular

  An illustration of Humpty Dumpty by American artist William Wallace Denslow, depicting the title character from the nursery rhyme of the same name. He is typically portrayed as an egg, although the rhyme never explicitly states that he is, possibly because it may have been originally posed as a riddle. The earliest known version is in a manuscript addition to a copy of Mother Goose's Melody published in 1803.
• 
  The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby

  Illustration: Jessie Willcox Smith; Restoration: ErikTheBikeMan

  An illustration from a ca. 1916 edition of The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, a children's novel written by Charles Kingsley and originally serialised in 1862–63. The book, a didactic moral fable, tells the story of Tom (lower left), a young boy who drowns and is reincarnated as a "water-baby". He undergoes a series of adventures and eventually regains his human form. It was extremely popular during its day and through the 1920s, but has since fallen out of favour, perhaps due to Kingsley's expression of many of the common prejudices of that time period, such as against Americans, Jews, blacks, and Catholics, particularly the Irish.
• 
  Don Quixote

  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  An engraving by Gustave Doré of a scene from Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote, the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age in the Spanish literary canon. The scene illustrated here occurs early in the novel, when Alonso Quixano (Quixote's real name) has become obsessed with books of chivalry, and believes their every word to be true, despite the fact that many of the events in them are clearly impossible. Don Quixote was published in two separate volumes, ten years apart. It is considered a founding work of modern Western literature, and it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published.
• 
  The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

  Illustration: George Cruikshank; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  In this scene from Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Uncle Toby's colonel invents a device for firing multiple miniature cannons at once, based on a hookah. Unfortunately, he and Toby find the puffing on the hookah pipe so enjoyable that they keep setting the cannons off. The novel was published in nine volumes over ten years, starting in 1759. Although it was not always held in high esteem by other writers, its bawdy humour was popular with London society, and it has come to be seen as one of the greatest comic novels in English, as well as a forerunner for many modern narrative devices and styles.
• 
  Midas

  Artist: Walter Crane; Restoration: Lise Broer

  An illustration from an 1893 version of A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which recounted the tale of King Midas. In Greek mythology, Midas was given ability to turn everything he touched into gold by the god Bacchus. However, he soon discovered that he was unable to even eat. Bacchus told him to wash in the river Pactolus, and the power flowed in the river, which was supposedly the reason for why the river was so rich in gold in later years. In Hawthorne's version, Midas' touch even turned his daughter to gold (pictured here).
• 
  Headless Horseman

  Painting: John Quidor

  The Headless Horseman is a mythical figure who has appeared in folklore around the world since at least the Middle Ages. Depending on the legend, the Horseman is either carrying his head, or missing it altogether, and is searching for it. Examples include the dullahan from Ireland, who is a demonic fairy usually depicted riding a horse and carrying his head under his arm; the titular knight from the English tale Gawain and the Green Knight; and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," a short story written in 1820 by American Washington Irving which has been adapted into several other works of literature and film including the 1999 Tim Burton movie Sleepy Hollow.
  
  This picture, titled The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane, is an 1858 painting by American artist John Quidor, depicting a scene from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". It is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

Did you know (auto-generated) -

• ... that 19th-century Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski travelled the countryside as a "wild man" and later appeared as a literary character?
• ... 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 Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski – considered "the founding father of Polish literature" – wrote threnodies, the first Polish-language tragedy, and epigrams?
• ... that Soviet German literary critic Richard Knorre was injured in an explosion during the siege of Leningrad?
• ... 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?
• ... that the Three Bards are the most celebrated poets in the history of Polish literature?

Today in literature

25 April

• 1566 - Louise Labé, French poet died
• 1719 - Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is published.
• 1800 - William Cowper, English poet died
• 1911 - Emilio Salgari, Italian novelist died
• 1914 - Ross Lockridge, Jr., American writer born
• 1939 - Ted Kooser, American poet born
• 1998 - Wright Morris, American writer died
• 2004 - Thom Gunn, British poet died

Topics

Categories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Literature

Literature by ethnicity

Literature by form

Literature by genre

Literature by language

Literature by location

Literature by medium

Literature by period

Literature by source

Literature by topic

Literature by women

Fiction literature

Non-fiction literature

Publications

Anecdotes

Aviation literature

Books

Economics of the arts and literature

Grey literature

History of literature

Images of literature

Literary awards

Literary characters

Literary collaborations

Literary education

Literary events

Literary genres

Literary motifs

Literary organizations

Literary theory

Literary translation

Literary works

Literature databases

Literature franchises

Literature in popular culture

Literature lists

Literature records

Literature timelines

Meitei literature

Miscellanies

Nicknames in literature

Occupations in literature

Oral literature

People in literature

Postcolonial literature

Professorships in literature

Quotations from literature

References in literary works

Self-portraiture

Stylistics

Unfinished literature

Versions of literary works

Wikipedia categories named after texts

Works about literature

Works based on literature

Literature stubs

Wikipedia categories named after literary texts

Related portals

Portals related to literature

Concepts:
Genres:
Religions:

Things you can do

Related WikiProjects

WikiProjects related to literature:

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

• 

  Commons
  Free media repository

• 

  Wikibooks
  Free textbooks and manuals

• 

  Wikidata
  Free knowledge base

• 

  Wikinews
  Free-content news

• 

  Wikiquote
  Collection of quotations

• 

  Wikisource
  Free-content library

• 

  Wikiversity
  Free learning tools

• 

  Wiktionary
  Dictionary and thesaurus

Discover Wikipedia using portals

• 

  List of all portals

• 

  The arts portal

• 

  Biography portal

• 

  Current events portal

• 

  Geography portal

• 

  History portal

• 

  Mathematics portal

• 

  Science portal

• 

  Society portal

• 

  Technology portal

• 

  Random portal

• 

  WikiProject Portals