Portal:Literature/Selected article archive
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This page is an archive of articles featured on the Literature Portal. For literature articles that have gained the featured article status see Wikipedia:Featured articles#Literature.
- 17 May 2006 - The Giver
- 9 February 2006 - The Brothers Karamazov
- 12 March 2005 - Hilda Doolittle
[edit] Archive
Today, March 31, 2007, week number 13.
Archives: 2006
Turkish literature is the collection of written and oral texts composed in the Turkish language, either in its Ottoman form or in less exclusive literary forms, such as that spoken in the Republic of Turkey today. The Ottoman Turkish language, which forms the basis of much of the written corpus, was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and used a variant of the Perso-Arabic script.
The history of Turkish literature spans a period of nearly 1,500 years. The oldest extant records of written Turkish are the Orhon inscriptions, found in the Orhon River valley in central Mongolia and dating to the 8th century. Subsequent to this period, between the 9th and 11th centuries, there arose among the nomadic Turkic peoples of Central Asia a tradition of oral epics, such as the Book of Dede Korkut of the Oghuz Turks—ancestors of the modern Turkish people—and the Manas epic of the Kyrgyz people.
Beginning with the Seljuks in the 11th century, the Oghuz Turks began to settle in Anatolia, and in addition to the earlier oral traditions there arose a written literary tradition heavily influenced by Arabic and Persian literature. For the next 900 years, until shortly before the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, the oral and written traditions would remain largely separate from one another. With the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the two traditions came together for the first time.
Oroonoko is a short novel (or novella) by Aphra Behn (July 1640 – April 16, 1689), published in 1688, concerning the tragic love of its hero, an enslaved African in Suriname in the 1660's, and the author's own experiences with the new American colony. It is generally claimed (most famously by Virginia Woolf) that Aphra Behn was the first professional female author in English. While this is not entirely true, it is true that Behn was the first professional female dramatist and novelist, as well as one of the first novelists in English. Although she had written at least one novel previously, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko is both one of the earliest English novels and one of the earliest by a woman.
Behn worked for Charles II as a spy during the outset of the Second Dutch War, working to solicit a double agent. However, Charles either failed to pay her for her services or failed to pay her all that he owed her, and Behn, upon returning to England needed money. She was widowed and destitute and even spent some time in debtor's prison before scoring a number of successes as an author. She wrote very fine poetry that sold well and was the basis of her fame for the following generation, and she had a number of highly successfully staged plays that established her fame in her own lifetime. In the 1670's, only John Dryden had plays staged more often than Behn. She turned her hand to long prose toward the end of her dramatic career, and Oroonoko was published in the same year as her death at the age of 48.
Du Fu or Tu Fu (712–770) was a prominent Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty. Along with Li Po (Li Bai), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets. His own greatest ambition was to help his country by becoming a successful civil servant, but he proved unable to make the necessary accommodations. His life, like the whole country, was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755, and the last 15 years of his life were a time of almost constant unrest.
Initially unpopular, his works came to be hugely influential in both Chinese and Japanese culture. He has been called Poet-Historian and the Poet-Sage by Chinese critics, while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to Western readers as "the Chinese Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Béranger, Hugo or Baudelaire".
Ezra Pound in 1913. |
The poetry of the United States began as a literary art during the colonial era. Unsurprisingly, most of the early poetry written in the colonies and fledgling republic used contemporary British models of poetic form, diction, and theme. However, in the 19th century a distinctive American idiom began to emerge. By the later part of that century, when Walt Whitman was winning an enthusiastic audience abroad, poets from the United States had begun to take their place at the forefront of the English-language avant-garde. This position was sustained into the 20th century to the extent that Ezra Pound (pictured) and T.S. Eliot were perhaps the most influential English-language poets in the period around World War I. By the 1960s, the young poets of the British Poetry Revival looked to their American contemporaries and predecessors as models for the kind of poetry they wanted to write.
Toward the end of the millennium, consideration of American poetry had diversified, as scholars placed an increased emphasis on poetry by women, African Americans, Hispanics, Chicanos and other subcultural groupings. Poetry, and creative writing in general, also tended to become more professionalized with the growth of Creative Writing programs on campuses across the country.
ASIMO, a humanoid robot. |
In science fiction, the Three Laws of Robotics are a set of three rules written by Isaac Asimov, which most robots appearing in his fiction must obey. Introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", the Laws state the following:
- A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first passage in Asimov's short story "Liar!" (1941) that mentions the First Law is the earliest recorded use of the word robotics. Asimov was not initially aware of this; he assumed the word already existed by analogy with mechanics, hydraulics, and other similar terms denoting branches of applied knowledge.
The Three Laws form an organizing principle and unifying theme for Asimov's fiction, appearing in the Foundation series and the other stories linked to it, as well as Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter. Other authors working in Asimov's fictional universe have adopted them, and references (often parodic) appear throughout science fiction and in other genres. Technologists in the field of artificial intelligence, working to create real machines with some of the properties of Asimov's robots, have speculated upon the role the Laws may have in the future.
Page of the poem Beowulf. |
Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις," poesis—a "making" or "creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning.
Poetry has a long history. Early attempts to define it, such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts focused on features such as repetition and rhyme, and emphasised the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from prose.
Poetry often uses particular forms and conventions to expand the literal meaning of the words, or to invoke emotional or sensual responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. Poetry's use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, metaphor and simile create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived.
Some forms of poetry are specific to particular cultures and genres, responding to the characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. While readers accustomed to identifying poetry with Shakespeare, Dante and Goethe may think of poetry as being written in rhyming lines and regular meter, there are other traditions, such as those of Du Fu and Beowulf, which use other approaches to achieve rhythm and euphony. In today's globalized world, poets often borrow styles, techniques and forms from different cultures and languages.
Thomas Pynchon (born May 8, 1937) is an American writer based in New York City. He is noted for his dense and complex works of fiction. Born in Glen Cove, New York (on Long Island), Pynchon spent two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known today: V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity's Rainbow (1973), Vineland (1990), and Mason & Dixon (1997). A new novel, entitled Against the Day (2006), has been published recently.
Pynchon's most celebrated novel is his third, Gravity's Rainbow, published in 1973. An incredibly intricate and allusive fiction which combines and elaborates on many of the themes of his earlier work, including preterition, paranoia, racism, colonialism, conspiracy, synchronicity, and entropy, the novel has spawned a wealth of commentary and critical material, including two reader's guides, books and scholarly articles, on-line concordances and discussions, and art works, and is regarded as one of the archetypal texts of American literary postmodernism.
Relatively little is known about Thomas Pynchon as a private person; he has carefully avoided contact with journalists for more than forty years. Only a few photos of him are known to exist, nearly all from his high school and college days, and his whereabouts have often remained undisclosed.
Title page of the original edition. |
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a 1899 book by Charles Godfrey Leland. The book is an attempt to portray the beliefs and rituals of an underground religious witchcraft tradition in Tuscany that had survived for centuries until Leland's claimed discovery of its existence in the 1890s. Scholars have disputed the veracity of this claim. Still, the book has become one of the foundational texts of Wicca and Neo-paganism.
The text is a composite. Some of it is Leland's translation into English of an original Italian manuscript, the Vangelo (gospel). Leland reported receiving the manuscript from his primary informant on Italian witchcraft beliefs, a woman Leland called "Maddalena". The rest of the material comes from Leland's research on Italian folklore and traditions, including other related material from Maddalena. Leland had been informed of the Vangelo's existence in 1886, but it took Maddalena eleven years to provide him with a copy. After translating and editing the material, it took another two years for the book to be published. Its fifteen chapters portray the origins, beliefs, rituals and spells of an Italian pagan witchcraft tradition. The central figure of that religion is the goddess Aradia who came to Earth to teach the practice of witchcraft to oppressed peasants in order for them to oppose their feudal oppressors and the Christian church.
Ace Books is the oldest active specialty publisher of science fiction and fantasy books. The company was founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn, and began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns. It soon branched out into other genres, publishing its first science fiction (sf) title in 1953; this was a successful innovation, and within a few years, sf titles outnumbered both mysteries and westerns. Other genres also made an appearance, including nonfiction, gothic novels, media tie-in novelizations, and romances.
Ace became known for the dos-à-dos binding format used for many of its early books, although it did not originate the format. Most of the early titles were published in this "Ace Double" format, and Ace continued to issue books in varied genres, bound dos-à-dos, until 1973. These have proved attractive to book collectors, and some rare titles in mint shape command prices up to $1,000.
Ace, along with Ballantine Books, was one of the leading sf publishers for its first ten years. With the death of owner A. A. Wyn in 1967, however, the company's fortunes began to decline. Two prominent editors, Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, left in 1971, and in 1972 Ace sold to Grosset & Dunlap. Despite financial troubles, there were further successes, particularly with the third Ace Science Fiction Specials series, for which Carr was the editor. Further mergers and acquisitions resulted in the company becoming a part of Berkley Books. Ace then became an imprint of Penguin Group (USA); its editorial team is also responsible the Roc Books imprint, although the two imprints maintain a separate identity.
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert |
W. S. Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English dramatist, librettist and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. These, as well as most of their other Savoy operas, continue to be performed regularly throughout the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies, repertory companies, schools and community theatre groups. Lines from these works have become part of the English language, such as "short, sharp shock", "What never? Well, hardly ever!", and "Let the punishment fit the crime".
Gilbert also wrote the Bab Ballads, an extensive collection of light verse accompanied by his own comical drawings. His creative output included over 75 plays and libretti, numerous stories, poems, lyrics and various other comic and serious pieces. His plays and realistic style of stage direction inspired other dramatists, including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw.
Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is one of the earliest works of feminist literature or philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to the educational and political theorists of the eighteenth century who wanted to deny women an education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society and then proceeds to redefine that position, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men.
Wollstonecraft was prompted to write the Rights of Woman by Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord's 1791 report to the French National Assembly which stated that women should only receive a domestic education; she used her commentary on this specific event to launch a broad attack against sexual double standards and to indict men for encouraging women to indulge in excessive emotion. Wollstonecraft wrote the Rights of Woman hurriedly in order to respond directly to ongoing events; she intended to write a more thoughtful second volume, but she died before she was able to complete it.
While Wollstonecraft does call for equality between the sexes in particular areas of life, such as morality, she does not explicitly state that men and women are completely equal. Her ambiguous statements regarding the equality of the sexes have since made it difficult to classify Wollstonecraft as a modern feminist, particularly since the word and the concept were unavailable to her. Although it is commonly assumed now that the Rights of Woman was unfavorably received, this is a modern misconception based on the belief that Wollstonecraft was as reviled during her lifetime as she became after the publication of William Godwin's Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798). The Rights of Woman was actually well-received when it was first published in 1792.
- May 2007
Portal:Literature/Selected article archive/May 2007
- June 2007
Portal:Literature/Selected article archive/June 2007