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, and including 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, 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 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 Duino Elegies are a collection of ten elegies written by the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926). Rilke, who is "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets," began writing the elegies in 1912 while a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis (1855–1934) at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. The poems, 859 lines long in total, were dedicated to the Princess upon their publication in 1923. During this ten-year period, the elegies languished incomplete for long stretches of time as Rilke suffered frequently from severe depression—some of which was caused by the events of World War I and being conscripted into military service. Aside from brief episodes of writing in 1913 and 1915, Rilke did not return to the work until a few years after the war ended. With a sudden, renewed inspiration—writing in a frantic pace he described as a "boundless storm, a hurricane of the spirit"—he completed the collection in February 1922 while staying at Château de Muzot in Veyras, in Switzerland's Rhone Valley. After their publication in 1923 and Rilke's death in 1926, the Duino Elegies were quickly recognized by critics and scholars as his most important work.
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“ | A lion was awakened from sleep by a Mouse running over his face. Rising up angrily, he caught him and was about to kill him, when the Mouse piteously entreated, saying: 'If you would only spare my life, I would be sure to repay your kindness.' The Lion laughed and let him go. It happened shortly after this that the Lion was caught by some hunters, who bound him by strong ropes to the ground. The Mouse, recognizing his roar, came, gnawed the rope with his teeth, and set him free, exclaiming 'You ridiculed the idea of my ever being able to help you, expecting to receive from me any repayment of your favor; but now you know that it is possible for even a Mouse to confer benefits on a Lion.' | ” |
— Aesop, "The Lion and the Mouse" |
More Did you know
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- ... that the works of Georgette Heyer include her first novel The Black Moth (1921), which she based on a story she wrote for her haemophiliac younger brother?
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- ... that some of the most popular nautical fiction works, including those about Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey, were based upon the real adventures of the "sea wolf" – Lord Cochrane?
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- ... that the lands of the Shirvanshah served as the focal point for Persian literature during the 12th century?
- ... that Swedish writer Hedda Anderson began her literary career at the age of 58, following her husband's death in 1888?
- ... that the biography of Karin Boye, written by Swedish literary critic Margit Abenius, was criticised for the conservative analysis of Boye's homosexuality?
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- ... that Helene P. Foley's Sather Lecture on the reception of Greek theatre in the United States was described as "something of a milestone" in bringing the subject closer to the mainstream?
- ... that Cathie Dunsford was unable to find many books about lesbianism in the 1970s, but by the 1980s had herself become a writer and anthologist of lesbian literature?
Today in literature
- 1779 - Thomas Moore, Irish poet born
- 1849 - Anne Brontë, English author died
- 1908 - Ian Fleming, English author born
- 1911 - Fritz Hochwälder, Austrian author born
- 1912 - Patrick White, Australian writer born
- 1916 - Ivan Franko, Ukrainian writer died
- 1916 - Walker Percy, American author born
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