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Wikipedia portals: Culture · Geography · Health · History · Mathematics · Natural sciences · Philosophy · Religion · Society · Technology The Literary Portal Literature is literally "an acquaintance with letters", as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary (from the Latin littera meaning "an individual written character"). The term has generally come to identify a collection of texts or works of art, which in Western culture are mainly prose, both fiction and non-fiction, drama and poetry. In much, if not all of the world, texts can be oral as well, and include such genres as epic, legend, myth, ballad, other forms of oral poetry, and the folktale. The word "literature" as a common noun can refer to any form of writing, such as essays; "Literature" as a proper noun refers to a whole body of literary work. The history of literature begins with the history of writing, in the Bronze Age of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, although the oldest literary texts date to a full millennium after the invention of writing, to the late 3rd millennium BC. The earliest literary authors known by name are Ptahhotep and Enheduanna, dating to ca. the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, respectively. More about Literature... Selected article"The Raven" is a narrative poem by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. It is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow descent into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. The raven, sitting on a bust of Pallas, seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore". The poem makes use of a number of folk and classical references. Poe claimed to have written the poem very logically and methodically. His intention was to create a poem that would appeal to both critical and popular tastes, as he explains in his 1846 follow-up essay "The Philosophy of Composition". The poem was inspired in part by a talking raven in the novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty by Charles Dickens. Poe borrows the complex rhythm and meter of Elizabeth Barrett's poem "Lady Geraldine's Courtship". The poem makes use of internal rhyme as well as alliteration throughout. The first printing of "The Raven" was in the January 29, 1845, issue of the New York Evening Mirror. Its publication made Poe widely popular in his lifetime though it did not bring him much financial success. The poem was soon reprinted, parodied, and illustrated. Although critical opinion is divided as to its status, it remains one of the most famous poems ever written. Selected picture
Image: Mohd Tarmizi Did you know ...... that Psycho, a 1959 novel by Robert Bloch, was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock (pictured) in 1960 and remade by Gus Van Sant in 1998? ... that Print on demand (POD) is a publishing method in which a copy is not created until after an order is received? ... that British novelist Nina Bawden was badly injured and her husband killed in the Potters Bar rail crash of 2002? ... that from 1934, as a means of Gleichschaltung, all authors who wanted to publish their works in Nazi Germany had to be members of the Reichsschrifttumskammer (RSK), whose presidents were Hans-Friedrich Blunck (1934-35) and, from 1935, Hanns Johst ("Whenever I hear of culture ... I release the safety-catch of my Browning")? ... that Talking in Tongues (Pearson Award for Best New Play, 1991), Mules, and One Under are stage plays by British playwright Winsome Pinnock, and that she is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kingston University? ... that Samuel French was a U.S. entrepreneur who, together with British actor, playwright and theatrical manager Thomas Hailes Lacy, pioneered in the field of theatrical publishing and the licensing of plays? ... that "Es grünt so grün, wenn Spaniens Blüten blühen" is the German rendering of "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain"? TopicsNew pagesQuotes
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