Literary society

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of literature, e.g. the World Science Fiction Society, or a specific writer -- see, for example, the list of poetry groups and movements. Such societies typically engage in research about their chosen author or genre, publishing a newsletter and holding meetings to deliver papers. Some are overtly academic and scholarly; others are more social groups of amateurs who appreciate a chance to discuss their favourite writer with other hobbyists.

Modern examples of literary societies include:

in the United States, the Philomathean Society, the Demosthenian Literary Society, and the Phi Kappa Literary Society
in France, Parnassian poets and La Pléiade
in Germany, the Tunnel über der Spree, the Georgekreis and the Group 47.

Historically, literary societies referred to salons such as those of Madame de Stael, Madame Geoffrin and Madame de Tencin in pre-Revolutionary France.

A usage of the term peculiar to the United States refers to the forerunners of the fraternity movement. These collegiate literary societies were an important part of campus social life in the early 19th century United States. The term "literary," when used in the context of these societies, more accurately refers to a "society of words," that is, a debating society, rather than to societies particularly devoted to literature. The two oldest literary societies extant in the United States are the American Whig-Cliosophic Society, formed from the Whig (1769) and Cliosophic (1765) Societies of Princeton, and the Union-Philanthropic Society, formed from the Union (1789) and Philanthropic (1805, 1807) Societies of Hampden-Sydney. The Philomathean Society (1813) of the University of Pennsylvania is the oldest continuously-existing literary society in the United States. The University of Georgia hosts two literary societies (both of which were temporarily disbanded during the Civil War and the subsequent Union occupation): the Demosthenian Literary Society, founded in 1803, and the Phi Kappa Literary Society, founded in 1820 and dormant from the 1970s until its official re-establishment in 1991.