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.
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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Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) is a personal travel narrative by the eighteenth-century British feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft. The twenty-five letters cover a wide range of topics, from sociological reflections on Scandinavia and its peoples to philosophical questions regarding identity. Published by Wollstonecraft's career-long publisher, Joseph Johnson, it was the last work issued during her lifetime.
Wollstonecraft undertook her tour of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in order to retrieve a stolen treasure ship for her lover, Gilbert Imlay. Believing that the journey would restore their strained relationship, she eagerly set off. However, over the course of the three months she spent in Scandinavia, she realized that Imlay had no intention of renewing the relationship. The letters, which constitute the text, drawn from her journal and from missives she sent to Imlay, reflect her anger and melancholy over his repeated betrayals. Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark is therefore both a travel narrative and an autobiographical memoir.
Using the rhetoric of the sublime, Wollstonecraft explores the relationship between self and society in the text. She values subjective experience, particularly in relation to nature; champions the liberation and education of women; and illustrates the detrimental effects of commerce on society.
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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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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that John Seigenthaler hosted a literary interview program which ran for 42 years on Nashville Public Television?
- ... that The Inland Whale, by Theodora Kroeber, sought to demonstrate the literary merit of Indigenous American oral traditions?
- ... that Galadriel's gift of some of her hair to Gimli in The Lord of the Rings has echoes in both English literature and Norse legend?
- ... that medieval literature scholar Theodore Silverstein's unit in World War II took over the Eiffel Tower to intercept communications of German aircraft?
- ... that literary critic Leslie Fiedler called the novel Band of Angels "operatic in the worst sense of the word"?
- ... that the North-Western Regional Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) ran an underground network to distribute literature to German soldiers in occupied areas?
Today in literature
- 1733 - Mikhail Shcherbatov, Russian philosopher and writer born
- 1916 - James Whitcomb Riley, American author and poet died
- 1948 - S. E. Hinton, American author born
- 1967 - Carl Sandburg, American poet died
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