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...)
General images -
Pattern Recognition is a novel by science fiction writer William Gibson published in 2003. Set in August and September 2002, the story follows Cayce Pollard, a 32-year-old marketing consultant who has a psychological sensitivity to corporate symbols. The action takes place in London, Tokyo, and Moscow as Cayce judges the effectiveness of a proposed corporate symbol and is hired to seek the creators of film clips anonymously posted to the internet.
The novel's central theme involves the examination of the human desire to detect patterns or meaning and the risks of finding patterns in meaningless data. Other themes include methods of interpretation of history, cultural familiarity with brand names, and tensions between art and commercialization.
Pattern Recognition is Gibson's eighth novel and his first one to be set in the contemporary world. Like his previous work, it has been classified as a science fiction and postmodern novel, with the action unfolding along a thriller plot line. Critics approved of the writing but found the plot unoriginal and some of the language distracting. The book peaked at number four on the New York Times Best Seller list, was nominated for the 2003 British Science Fiction Association Award, and was shortlisted for the 2004 Arthur C. Clarke Award and Locus Awards.
Selected excerpt
“ | Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words? | ” |
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray |
More Did you know
- ... that Wounds of Armenia, the first Armenian novel, was published 10 years after the disappearance of its author Khachatur Abovian?
- ... that James Nelson Barker's play The Indian Princess is largely responsible for the modern version of the Pocahontas story?
- ... that actor Andrew Robinson wrote the novel A Stitch in Time, which is about his character from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?
- ... that Picasso's poetry has lines like "my grandmother's big balls are shining midst the thistles" and that one of his works depicts Franco as a jackbooted phallus?
- ... that the novel Passing by Nella Larsen, with its focus on "jealousy, psychological ambiguity and intrigue" has been described as a "skillfully executed and enduring work of art"?
Selected illustration
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that more than 1000 tons of paper were used every year printing car literature for the British Motor Corporation by the in-house Nuffield Press?
- ... that Malaysian poet Wong Phui Nam wrote in English, despite feeling no connection to the English literary tradition?
- ... that Al-Wishah fi Fawa'id al-Nikah, a 15th-century Islamic sex manual by Egyptian writer Al-Suyuti, was based on both traditional hadith literature and material influenced by Indian erotology?
- ... 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 19th-century Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski travelled the countryside as a "wild man" and later appeared as a literary character?
- ... that Walid Daqqa wrote several works of prison literature, including a children's novel about a boy who uses magical olive oil to visit his imprisoned father?
Today in literature
- 1493 - Agnolo Firenzuola, Italian poet born
- 1618 - Joshua Sylvester, English poet died
- 1803 - Prosper Mérimée, French author born
- 1824 - Francis Turner Palgrave, British critic and poet born
- 1856 - Kate Douglas Wiggin, American children's author born
- 1891 - Herman Melville, American novelist died
- 1909 - Al Capp, American cartoonist born
- 1950 - John Sayles, American director and writer born
- 1966 - André Breton, French poet died
- 1970 - John Dos Passos, American novelist died
- 1993 - Peter De Vries, American novelist died
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