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, 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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Z. Marcas is a novelette by French author Honoré de Balzac first published in 1840. Set in contemporary Paris, it describes the rise and fall of a brilliant political strategist who is abandoned by the politicians he helps into power. Destitute and forgotten, he befriends a pair of students who live next door to him in a boarding-house. The story follows their many discussions about the political situation in France.
Although Z. Marcas features characters from other Balzac stories and elements of literary realism – both hallmarks of Balzac's style – it is remembered primarily for its political themes. Balzac, a legitimist, believed that France's lack of bold leadership had led to mediocrity and ruin, and that men of quality were being ignored or worse. He maintained that the youth of France were in danger of being abandoned by the government, and predicted unrest in the years to come.
The story also explores Balzac's conviction that a person's name is a powerful indicator of his or her destiny, an idea he drew from the work of Laurence Sterne. The title character, with his keen intellect, is based on Balzac's conception of himself: a visionary genius who fails to achieve his true potential because of less talented individuals with more social power.
Selected excerpt
“ | A lion was awakened from sleep by a Mouse running over his face. Rising up angrily, he caught him and was about to kill him, when the Mouse piteously entreated, saying: 'If you would only spare my life, I would be sure to repay your kindness.' The Lion laughed and let him go. It happened shortly after this that the Lion was caught by some hunters, who bound him by strong ropes to the ground. The Mouse, recognizing his roar, came, gnawed the rope with his teeth, and set him free, exclaiming 'You ridiculed the idea of my ever being able to help you, expecting to receive from me any repayment of your favor; but now you know that it is possible for even a Mouse to confer benefits on a Lion.' | ” |
— Aesop, "The Lion and the Mouse" |
More Did you know
- ... that Polish writer Irena Jurgielewiczowa was also an underground teacher and a resistance fighter in WWII?
- ... that Kwee Tek Hoay's novel Drama dari Krakatau blames the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa on deliberate damage to a Vishnu statue?
- ... that a famous line by Li E reads "rain/wash/autumn/lush/people/pale"?
- ... that the memoir Wave is based on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami?
- ... that George Packer's book The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America won the 2013 National Book Award for Nonfiction?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the bridge from which James Bond leapt in No Time to Die is actually an aqueduct?
- ... that the Three Bards are the most celebrated poets in the history of Polish literature?
- ... that Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski – considered "the founding father of Polish literature" – wrote threnodies, the first Polish-language tragedy, and epigrams?
- ... that Sheila Egoff, Canada's first professor of children's literature, returned to her library work immediately after retirement?
- ... that 19th-century Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski travelled the countryside as a "wild man" and later appeared as a literary character?
- ... that Swedish writer Hedda Anderson began her literary career at the age of 58, following her husband's death in 1888?
Today in literature
- 1595 - Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library
- 1855 - Arthur Wing Pinero, English playwright born
- 1899 - Henri Michaux, French poet born
- 1905 - Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian writer born
- 1928 - William Trevor, Irish writer born
- 1940 - Joseph Brodsky, Russian-born poet born
- 2004 - Milton Shulman, Canadian author died
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