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...)
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"Big Two-Hearted River" is a two-part short story written by American author Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 Boni & Liveright edition of In Our Time, the first American volume of Hemingway's short stories. It features a single protagonist, Hemingway's recurrent autobiographical character Nick Adams, whose speaking voice is heard just twice. The story explores the destructive qualities of war which is countered by the healing and regenerative powers of nature. When it was published, critics praised Hemingway's sparse writing style and it became an important work in his canon.
The story is one of Hemingway's earliest pieces to employ his Iceberg Theory of writing; a modernist approach to prose in which the underlying meaning is hinted at, rather than explicitly stated. "Big Two-Hearted River" is almost exclusively descriptive and intentionally devoid of plot. Hemingway was influenced by the visual innovations of Cézanne's paintings and adapted the painter's idea of presenting background minutiae in lower focus than the main image. In this story, the small details of a fishing trip are explored in great depth, while the landscape setting, and most obviously the swamp, are given cursory attention.
Selected excerpt
“ | Something I may not win attracts me ever,— Something elusive, yet supremely fair, Thrills me with gladness, but contents me never, Fills me with sadness, yet forbids despair. |
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— Florence Earle Coates, "The Ideal" in Poems |
More Did you know
- ... that Norwegian surrealist poet Triztán Vindtorn changed his first name into the name of his favorite pub?
- ... that The Six Wives of Henry VIII inspired Lecia Cornwall to write historical novels?
- ... that Stolen Childhood was the first full-length book on the history of children enslaved during the American slave-era?
- ... that the Indian poet and philosopher Dwijendranath Tagore wrote the book Boxometry about the construction of boxes?
- ... that The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, a science fiction novel by Doris Lessing, was adapted for the opera in 1997 by Philip Glass?
Selected illustration
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... 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?
- ... that John Seigenthaler hosted a literary interview program which ran for 42 years on Nashville Public Television?
- ... 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 Imagining Mars: A Literary History "presents a compelling case that 'Mars matters'"?
- ... that the poet Fernando Pessoa considered Alberto Caeiro, one of his own heteronyms, to be his master?
- ... that The Inland Whale, by Theodora Kroeber, sought to demonstrate the literary merit of Indigenous American oral traditions?
Today in literature
- 1628 - Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, English poet died
- 1700 - Stanisław Konarski, Polish writer born
- 1868 - First edition of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is published.
- 1904 - Waldo Williams, Welsh poet born
- 1924 - Truman Capote, American author born
- 1990 - Patrick White, Australian writer died
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Regions: | Australian literature · Indian literature · Persian literature |
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