Literature

The Chronicles of Narnia

Literature as an art, consists of writings whose value lies in the beauty of form or emotional effect.” Traditionally, this encompasses such diverse forms of expression as novels, poetry, and others. Literary criticism is usually itself considered a form of literature.

The art of literature is not reducible to the words on the page; they are there because of the craft of writing. As an art, literature is the organization of words to give pleasure; through them it elevates and transforms experience; through them it functions in society as a continuing symbolic criticism of values. The Art of Literature Encyclopædia Britannica.

The content of literature is as limitless as the desire of human beings to communicate. Literary criticism is usually itself considered a form of literature.

While epic poetry is a form of artistic expression, it is generally considered that literature began with the recording of such epics, rather than their oral recitation. In ancient Mesopotamia, the development of ideographic glyphs allowed the recording of the Epic of Gilgamesh in the city of Akkadia for an Assyrian king in the seventh century B.C., arguably the first piece of literature that we possess today. It was preceded by multiple other items of literature that we know of, such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, but while Egyptologists believe this to have been recorded as early as the eighteenth century B.C., extant copies date from 250 B.C.

Literature is not only a storehouse of creativity. Through its topics of discussion literature is also a take on the history of the world. Dealing as it does with language it is also, a repository of the history of language. Ancient literatures like those of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Celtic, Saxon, Aryan, Dravidan and the like help us learn how these languages have evolved through time and through the ravages of the different cultures conquering them. Literature has also helped preserve for man the different schools of thought, Sophism to Modernism, the Dead Sea scrolls to Structuralism.

Popular authors

Charles Dickens

Some of the most popular authors are:

• Charles Dickens
• Mark Twain
• William Shakespeare
• Arthur Conan Doyle
• Jane Austen
• Jules Verne
• L. Frank Baum (Lyman Frank - The Wizard of Oz)
• Lewis Carroll
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Oscar Wilde
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• H. G. Wells (Herbert George)
• Homer
• Leo Tolstoy
• J. R. R. Tolkien
• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• Paulo Coelho
• Dan Brown

Poetry Samples

Lord Byron.

We call it a grain of sand

but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.

It does just fine without a name,

whether general, particular,

permanent, passing,

incorrect or apt.

Wislawa Szymborska, from "View with a Grain of Sand". Poetry Samples

From The Raven by Poe.

..............................................................

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted - nevermore!

(EZRA POUND, PISAN CANTOS, LXXXI)

What thou lovest well remains,

the rest is dross

What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage Whose world, or mine or theirs

or is it of none?

First came the seen, then thus the palpable

Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,

What thou lovest well is thy true heritage What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee.

A novel criticism

Tolstoy and wife Sonya Andreyevna Behrs

About Anna Karenina.

Anna Karenina was published in serial form from 1873-1877. It created a great stir in society; reports from the time claim that everyone in Russian Society was discussing the book and waiting eagerly for the next installment to appear. The critical reaction was mostly positive and, like the novel itself, passionate. It was published on the heels of Leo Tolstoy's great opus, War and Peace (1863-1869) and solidified his reputation as one of Russia's most important 19th-century writers. This was quite a feat, given that his contemporaries included Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Gogol and Lermontov.... Although the critical reaction to Anna Karenina was favorable and the public was shaken by the strength of both the story and Tolstoy's prose, Tolstoy himself was dissatisfied with the novel... About Anna Karenina Literature ClassicNotes™

The Iliad (fragment)

Book I

Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.

And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs.

"Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove."

On this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for respecting the priest and taking the ransom that he offered; but not so Agamemnon, who spoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly away. "Old man," said he, "let me not find you tarrying about our ships, nor yet coming hereafter. Your sceptre of the god and your wreath shall profit you nothing. I will not free her. She shall grow old in my house at Argos far from her own home, busying herself with her loom and visiting my couch; so go, and do not provoke me or it shall be the worse for you."

Homer.

See also

• Spanish Golden Age
• Liberal Arts college
• World History Lecture One
• Poetry
• Author With a list of "Best books and authors".

Some are thoughtful on their way

Some are doubtful, so they pray.

I hear the hidden voice that may

Shout, "Both paths lead astray." Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

External links

Rabindranath Tagore

• The Internet Classics Archive by Daniel C. Stevenson.
• Project Gutenberg
• An Online Library of Literature
• Literature Open Directory.
• Top 50 Poems
• GLOSSARY OF POETIC TERMS
• HISTORY OF LITERATURE
• Literature of the Western World: Greek & Roman
• HISTORY OF LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
• The Cambridge History of English and American Literature An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes.
• A Brief History of Spanish-language Literature
• CHINESE LITERATURE
• History of Japan's Literature
• History of Indian Literature
• Literature in Ancient Egypt
• LITERATURE, HEBREW
• Arabic literature

"Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it."

Rabindranath Tagore.