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.
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...)
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X was published in 1965, the result of a collaboration between human rights activist Malcolm X and journalist Alex Haley. Haley coauthored the autobiography based on a series of in-depth interviews he conducted between 1963 and Malcolm X's 1965 assassination. The Autobiography is a spiritual conversion narrative that outlines Malcolm X's philosophy of black pride, black nationalism, and pan-Africanism. After the death of his subject Haley authored the book's epilogue, which describes their collaboration and summarizes the end of Malcolm X's life.
While Malcolm X and scholars contemporary to the book's publication regarded Haley as the book's ghostwriter, modern scholars tend to regard him as an essential collaborator who intentionally muted his authorial voice to allow readers to feel as though Malcolm X were speaking directly to them. Haley also influenced some of Malcolm X's literary choices; for example, when Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam during the composition of the book, Haley persuaded him to favor a style of "suspense and drama" rather than rewriting earlier chapters into a polemic against the Nation. Furthermore, Haley's proactive censorship of the manuscript's antisemitic material significantly influenced the ideological tone of the Autobiography, increasing its commercial success and popularity although distorting Malcolm X's public persona.
Selected excerpt
“ | The pedigree of honey Does not concern the bee ; A clover, any time, to him Is aristocracy. |
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— Emily Dickinson, "The pedigree of Honey" |
More Did you know
- ... that a stage adaptation of Kwee Tek Hoay's novel The Rose of Cikembang was made before he even finished writing it?
- ... that Shabnam Shakeel was a Pakistani Urdu poet who won the "President's Pride of Performance award" in 2004?
- ... that the 1987 novel The Firebrand, written by American author Marion Zimmer Bradley, depicts the Trojan War from the perspective of the prophet Kassandra, daughter of King Priam?
- ... that the admirers of poet Mary Elizabeth McGrath Blake included Theodore Roosevelt and Oliver Wendell Holmes?
- ... that one reason the medieval English writer Robert of Cricklade's biography of Thomas Becket may have been lost is it was too favourable to the side of King Henry II of England rather than Becket?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that literary critic Leslie Fiedler called the novel Band of Angels "operatic in the worst sense of the word"?
- ... that Emelia Quinn argues that "monstrous vegans" have recurred in literature since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?
- ... 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?
- ... that The Tale of Genji's Kaoru Genji has been called literature's first antihero?
- ... 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 Lviv branch of the Ukrderzhnatsmenvydav was the main publisher of Polish literature in the Soviet Union by 1941?
Today in literature
- 1617 - Barnabe Rich, English soldier and writer died
- 1644 - Luís Vélez de Guevara, Spanish writer died
- 1728 - Oliver Goldsmith, English playwright born
- 1759 - Friedrich von Schiller, German writer born
- 1772 - Pedro Correia Garção, Portuguese poet died
- 1871 - Winston Churchill, American novelist born
- 1879 - Vachel Lindsay, American poet born
- 1887 - Arnold Zweig, German author born
- 1893 - John P. Marquand, American writer born
- 1891 - Arthur Rimbaud, French poet died
- 1909 - Renee Vivien, American poet died
- 1960 - Neil Gaiman, English writer born
- 1995 - Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigerian writer died
- 2001 - Ken Kesey, American author died
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