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 prose, fiction, drama, poetry, and including both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, also known as orature much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and 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, memoir, 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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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English: Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight) is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance. It is one of the better-known Arthurian stories, of an established type known as the "beheading game". Written in bob and wheel stanzas, it emerges from Welsh, Irish and English tradition and highlights the importance of honour and chivalry. It is an important poem in the romance genre, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest that tests his prowess, and it remains popular to this day in modern English renderings from J. R. R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations.
It describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who challenges any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving Lady Bertilak, the lady of the Green Knight's castle.
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“ | When in 1892 I settled in Macao, a small island near the mouth of the Canton river, to practise medicine, I little dreamt that in four years time I should find myself a prisoner in the Chinese Legation in London, and the unwitting cause of a political sensation which culminated in the active interference of the British Government to procure my release. It was in that year however, and at Macao, that my first acquaintance was made with political life; and there began the part of my career which has been the means of bringing my name so prominently before the British people. | ” |
— Sun Yat-sen, Kidnapped in London |
More Did you know
- ... that in Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, Ken Auletta uses the story The Purloined Letter to describe the attitude of the traditional media executives toward Google?
- ... that Miriam Roth grew up in a Hungarian-speaking town, studied at a German-speaking university, and wrote best-sellers in Hebrew?
- ... that in the 1895 play Trilby, the role of Svengali was created by American actor Wilton Lackaye?
- ... that Louisa Venable Kyle wrote a children's book on The Witch of Pungo?
- ... that Walter Arthur Berendsohn, who successfully nominated Nelly Sachs and Willy Brandt for their respective Nobel Prizes, wrote Die humanistische Front, the seminal book on German exile literature?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Gunhild Bergh was the second woman in Sweden to be awarded a PhD in literary history?
- ... that John Seigenthaler hosted a literary interview program which ran for 42 years on Nashville Public Television?
- ... that the literary movement of créolie tries to integrate the identity of Réunion with France?
- ... that the Three Bards are the most celebrated poets in the history of Polish literature?
- ... that Super Mario 64 has been the subject of medical literature showing a correlation between habitual playing of 3D platformers and increased grey matter in the brain?
- ... that the pastor John Littlejohn went from selling pornographic literature to sailors as a youth to protecting the Declaration of Independence?
Today in literature
- 1815 - Arsène Houssaye, French novelist born
- 1868 - Maxim Gorky, Russian author born
- 1909 - Nelson Algren, American writer born
- 1914 - Bohumil Hrabal, Czech writer born
- 2000 - Anthony Powell, British novelist died
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