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
“ | I don’t know why it should be so, but it is an undeniable fact that there is nothing makes a man look so supremely ridiculous as losing his hat. The feeling of helpless misery that shoots down one’s back on suddenly becoming aware that one’s head is bare is among the most bitter ills that flesh is heir to. And then there is the wild chase after it, accompanied by an excitable small dog, who thinks it is a game, and in the course of which you are certain to upset three or four innocent children—to say nothing of their mothers—butt a fat old gentleman on to the top of a perambulator, and carom off a ladies’ seminary into the arms of a wet sweep. | ” |
— Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow |
More Did you know
- ... that one scholar suggests Louisa May Alcott wrote the sensationalist novella Behind a Mask to subvert the fantasy of the perfect "little woman"?
- ... 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?
- ... that British horror novelist Simon Clark wrote a sequel to John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids?
- ... that Cut Like Wound is Indian novelist Anita Nair's first work of detective fiction?
- ... 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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Did you know (auto-generated) -

- ... that Henry A. Henry brought an extensive library of Jewish literature when he emigrated to the United States in 1849?
- ... that scholar Mohja Kahf stated that there is no Syrian literature?
- ... that The Man Without Talent is an I-novel, a genre of semi-autobiographical confessional literature that has been popular in Japan since the early twentieth century?
- ... that Robert Aiello's first novel was published after literary agents turned it down roughly 60 times?
- ... that Malaysian poet Wong Phui Nam wrote in English, despite feeling no connection to the English literary tradition?
- ... that Polish 1960 sci-fi novel Wielka, większa i największa was very influential for Polish young-adult literature?
Today in literature
- 1768 - Laurence Sterne, Irish writer died
- 1840 - William Cosmo Monkhouse, English poet and critic born
- 1842 - Stéphane Mallarmé, French poet born
- 1893 - Wilfred Owen, English poet born
- 1904 - Srečko Kosovel, Slovenian poet born
- 1915 - Richard Condon, American novelist born
- 1932 - John Updike, American novelist, poet and critic born
- 1996 - Odysseus Elytis, Greek poet died
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