Portal:Literature Information
Introduction

Literature broadly 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, and poetry. 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, 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 the essay. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other printed information on a particular subject. ( Full article...)
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Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Seminary and an active abolitionist, featured the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve. The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. In the first year after it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States; one million copies were sold in Great Britain. In 1855, three years after it was published, it was called "the most popular novel of our day." In recent years, however, negative associations with Uncle Tom's Cabin have, to an extent, overshadowed the historical impact of the book as a "vital antislavery tool."
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Gilbert also wrote the Bab Ballads, an extensive collection of light verse accompanied by his own comical drawings. His creative output included over 75 plays and libretti, numerous stories, poems, lyrics and various other comic and serious pieces. His plays and realistic style of stage direction inspired other dramatists, including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. According to The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Gilbert's "lyrical facility and his mastery of metre raised the poetical quality of comic opera to a position that it had never reached before and has not reached since".
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“ | When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wonder'd. Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred! |
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— Alfred Tennyson, " The Charge of the Light Brigade" |
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 the cultural and literary journal Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände was most successful under its only female editor, Therese Huber?
- ... that Marion Hartog founded the first Jewish women's periodical in 1855?
- ... that Charles Larson became one of the first Americans to teach African literature, after working in Nigeria for the Peace Corps to avoid the Vietnam draft?
- ... that Super Mario 64 has been the subject of medical literature showing a correlation between habitual playing of 3D platformers and increased grey matter in the brain?
- ... that Swedish writer Hedda Anderson began her literary career at the age of 58, following her husband's death in 1888?
- ... that the 7th-century drama Bhagavadajjukam is the earliest-surviving satirical play in Sanskrit literature?
Today in literature
- 1627 - Anne, Duchess of Montpensier, French writer born
- 1874 - G. K. Chesterton, English novelist born
- 1892 - Alfonsina Storni, Argentine writer born
- 1906 - T. H. White, British author born
- 1911 - William S. Gilbert, English dramatist died
- 1933 - Edward Whittemore, American writer born
- 1958 - Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish writer died
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