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.
The term is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, which encompasses fiction written with the goal of literary merit.Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, 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 Man in the Moone is a book by the English divine and Church of England bishop Francis Godwin (1562–1633), describing a "voyage of utopian discovery". Initially considered to be one of his early works, it is now generally thought to have been written in the late 1620s. It was first published posthumously in 1638 under the pseudonym of Domingo Gonsales. The work is notable for its role in what was called the "new astronomy," the branch of astronomy influenced especially by Nicolaus Copernicus, the only astronomer mentioned by name, although the book also draws on the theories of Johannes Kepler, William Gilbert, and Galileo Galilei.
The work tells the story of Gonsales, a Spaniard who discovers a species of wild swan able to carry substantial loads, the gansa, and contrives a device that allows him to harness many of them together and fly around an island, and eventually, to the moon and back.
Some critics consider The Man in the Moone, along with Kepler's Somnium, to be one of the first works of science fiction. Although the book was well known in the 17th century, and even inspired parodies by Cyrano de Bergerac and Aphra Behn, modern literary critics do not consider it to be very important.
Selected excerpt
“ | It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting—everything happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy conscience pricking him and whispering "whitewash!" he somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working. | ” |
— Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows |
More Did you know
- ... that literary critics credit William Shakespeare's Hamlet as a significant contributor to Sigmund Freud's idea of the Oedipus complex?
- ... that the only copy of the book La Promenade du sceptique by Denis Diderot was confiscated by police on two occasions?
- ... that shenmo, the "gods and demons" genre of Chinese literature, includes fantasy novels such as Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods?
- ... that singer Morrissey's Autobiography was published in Penguin Classics, an imprint normally reserved for venerated and long-dead authors?
- ... that The Gentleman Usher is the only play in which late 16th-century playwright George Chapman takes a positive view of women?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Malaysian poet Wong Phui Nam wrote in English, despite feeling no connection to the English literary tradition?
- ... that literary critic Leslie Fiedler called the novel Band of Angels "operatic in the worst sense of the word"?
- ... that History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brothers in the Caribbean by C. G. A. Oldendorp was the first book to publish Igbo-language terms in 1777?
- ... that the pastor John Littlejohn went from selling pornographic literature to sailors as a youth to protecting the Declaration of Independence?
- ... that The Inland Whale, by Theodora Kroeber, sought to demonstrate the literary merit of Indigenous American oral traditions?
- ... that despite a career writing queer literature, Chen Xue's 2019 novel Fatherless City had a "putatively straight premise"?
Today in literature
- 1788 - Sarah Josepha Hale, American poet born
- 1868 - Alexandra David-Néel, French explorer and writer born
- 1904 - Moss Hart, American playwright born
- 1923 - Denise Levertov, English poet born
- 1929 - Yordan Radichkov, Bulgarian writer born
- 1929 - Hubert Aquin, French Canadian novelist born
- 1933 - Norman Rush, American novelist born
- 1943 - Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, French Canadian poet died
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