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 Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean is a novel written in 1858 by Scottish author R. M. Ballantyne. One of the first works of juvenile fiction to feature exclusively juvenile heroes, the story relates the adventures of three boys marooned on a South Pacific island, the only survivors of a shipwreck.
A typical Robinsonade – a genre of fiction inspired by Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe – and one of the most popular of its type, the book first went on sale in late 1857 and has never been out of print. Among the novel's major themes are the civilising effect of Christianity, 19th-century British imperialism in the South Pacific, and the importance of hierarchy and leadership. It was the inspiration for William Golding's 1954 dystopian novel Lord of the Flies, which inverted the morality of The Coral Island; in Ballantyne's story the children encounter evil, but in Lord of the Flies evil is within them.
The novel was considered a classic for elementary-school children of the early 20th century in Britain, and in the United States it was a staple of suggested reading lists for high-school students. Modern critics consider The Coral Island to feature a dated imperialist view of the world, but although it is less popular today than it once was, it was adapted into a four-part children's television drama broadcast by ITV in 2000.
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“ | Reader, I think proper, before we proceed any farther together, to acquaint thee that I intend to digress, through this whole history, as often as I see occasion, of which I am myself a better judge than any pitiful critic whatever; and here I must desire all those critics to mind their own business, and not to intermeddle with affairs or works which no ways concern them; for till they produce the authority by which they are constituted judges, I shall not plead to their jurisdiction. | ” |
— Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling |
More Did you know
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- ... that both the Star Trek novels The Tears of the Singers and Uhura's Song included Uhura as a main character as the authors thought she was underdeveloped in the show?
- ... that author Colum McCann described the subject of his 2003 novel Dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, as "a monster"?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that a study of Anglo-Saxon literature begun by Bernard Pitt in 1914 was completed by a colleague after Pitt was killed in the First World War?
- ... that Children's Fantasy Literature is the first work to address the genre's 500-year history in depth?
- ... that Robert Aiello's first novel was published after literary agents turned it down roughly 60 times?
- ... 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 the cultural scholar Hermann Bausinger wrote a book about the history of literature from Swabia from the 18th century to the present, published for his 90th birthday?
- ... that there is a Gambian literature even though it has been argued that there is "minimal basis" for its existence?
Today in literature
- 1729 - Michael Denis, Austrian poet born
- 1730 - Laurence Eusden, English poet died
- 1821 - Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss writer born
- 1871 - Grazia Deledda, Italian writer born
- 1891 - Ivan Goncharov, Russian author died
- 1906 - William Empson, British poet born
- 1906 - Jim Thompson, American author born
- 1917 - Louis Auchincloss, American author born
- 1924 - Bernard Waber, American author born
- 1945 - Kay Ryan, American poet born
- 1951 - Jim Shooter, American comic book writer born
- 1961 - Irvine Welsh, Scottish writer born
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