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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The Author's Farce and the Pleasures of the Town is a play by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding, first performed on 30 March 1730 at the Little Theatre, Haymarket. Written in response to the Theatre Royal's rejection of his earlier plays, The Author's Farce was Fielding's first theatrical success. The Little Theatre allowed Fielding the freedom to experiment, and to alter the traditional comedy genre. The play ran during the early 1730s and was altered for its run starting 21 April 1730 and again in response to the Actor Rebellion of 1733. Throughout its life, the play was coupled with several different plays.
The first and second acts deal with the attempts of the central character, Harry Luckless, to woo his landlady's daughter, and his efforts to make money by writing plays. In the second act, he finishes a puppet theatre play titled The Pleasures of the Town, about the Goddess Nonsense's choice of a husband from allegorical representatives of theatre and other literary genres. After its rejection by one theatre, Luckless's play is staged at another. The third act becomes a play within a play, in which the characters in the puppet play are portrayed by humans. The Author's Farce ends with a merging of the play's and the puppet show's realities.
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“ | It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow. | ” |
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter |
More Did you know
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- ... that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won a record-tying seven Olivier Awards at the 2013 Laurence Olivier Awards on April 28, 2013?
- ... that Berit Brænne's first children's book, from 1958, is a story about a sailor's family who adopted children from different parts of the world?
- ... that the 1934 Jeanne Galzy novel Jeunes filles en serre chaude, with its seductive title, was deemed to contain "dangerous aberrations" and "strong emotional reaction[s] of an undesirable nature"?
- ... that Fu Sheng was credited with saving the Confucian classic Book of Documents from the book burning of the First Emperor of China?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Alexandre Dumas's travel book Le Corricolo, published in 1843, contains one of the earliest literary accounts of Neapolitan pizza?
- ... that the bridge from which James Bond leapt in No Time to Die is actually an aqueduct?
- ... that the lands of the Shirvanshah served as the focal point for Persian literature during the 12th century?
- ... that Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski – considered "the founding father of Polish literature" – wrote threnodies, the first Polish-language tragedy, and epigrams?
- ... that literary agent Jacques Chambrun sold unauthorized, scandalous excerpts of a Marilyn Monroe memoir to a British tabloid?
- ... that Emelia Quinn argues that "monstrous vegans" have recurred in literature since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?
Today in literature
- 1878 - Upton Sinclair, American writer born
- 1884 - Maxwell Perkins, American editor of novelists born
- 1898 - Theodor Fontane, German writer died
- 1902 - Stevie Smith, British poet and novelist born
- 1923 - Geraldine Clinton Little, Irish-born poet born
- 1928 - Donald Hall, American poet born
- 1948 - George R. R. Martin, American writer born
- 1971 - Giorgos Seferis, Greek writer died
- 1975 - Saint-John Perse, French diplomat and writer died
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