Literature
With the development of language, the human imagination has found a way to create and communicate through the written word. A literary work can transport us into a fictional, fantastic new world, describe a fleeting feeling, or simply give us a picture of the past through novels, poems, tragedies, epic works, and other genres. Through literature, communication becomes an art, and it can bridge and bond people and cultures of different languages and backgrounds.
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Featured content, March 12, 2024
What jobs did Sir Walter Scott have?
What jobs did Sir Walter Scott have?
Diagnosing 9 of Charles Dickens’s Most Famous Characters
Dickens had a knack for expertly portraying human diseases.
Why Do Languages Die?
How does someone become the last known speaker of a language?
10 Frequently Confused Literary Terms
Do you confuse "denotation" with "connotation"? Oh, the irony! ...or is it coincidence?
literary criticism
Literary criticism, the reasoned consideration of literary works and issues. It applies, as a term, to any argumentation...
author
Author, one who is the source of some form of intellectual or creative work; especially, one who composes a book, article,...
Southeast Asian arts
Southeast Asian arts, the literary, performing, and visual arts of Southeast Asia. Although the cultural development of the...
Latin literature
Latin literature, the body of writings in Latin, primarily produced during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, when...
Literature Quizzes
Literary Hodgepodge
Who is the only one of Milton’s contemporaries to be mentioned by name in Paradise Lost? What Hemingway novel is...
Read Between the Lines
What is Japan’s oldest major novel? In the Odyssey, what term is used to describe the goddess Dawn? From Ivanhoe...
Writer’s Block
What name was given to the generation of writers Ernest Hemingway belonged to? Test your literary knowledge in this study...
Getting Into (Fictional) Character
What is the name of the schoolteacher in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"? Where does Sherlock Holmes live? Test your knowledge...
Open Books
In which decade did Anne Frank write her diary? To which literary genre does The War of the Worlds belong? Test...
Writer’s Digest
With which U.S. state is the writer John Steinbeck closely associated? Test the "state" of your literary knowledge in this...
Greek and Roman Literature: Fact or Fiction?
Was the Trojan Horse a real horse? Did Homer really write the Iliad? Test your knowledge of Greek and Roman literature...
Sherlock Holmes: Fact or Fiction?
Was the first Sherlock Holmes story "The Hound of the Baskervilles?" From London addresses to famous quotes, grab your magnifying...
Shakespearean Plays: Fact or Fiction?
Is the title character of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet a prince of England? From Twelfth Night to The...
William Shakespeare: Fact or Fiction?
Is William Shakespeare nicknamed "the Bard of Avon?" Did Shakespeare always spell his name one way? Spell check your smarts...
Literature Videos
Literature Subcategories
Folk Literature & Fable
Step into the world of folklore, fables, legends, tall tales, and epics, in which heroes are known to undertake arduous journeys and dragons, fairies, and giants abound. Stories such as these circulated long before systems of writing were developed; ballads, folktales, poems, and the like were transmitted exclusively by word of mouth before written languages took over, and they continue to captivate listeners and readers to this day.
Articles
- oral literature
- folk literature
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Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson
Norwegian author
Fictional Characters
Here you'll find some of your favorite fictional characters from literature, film, television, and the like, whether it's the analytical mastermind Sherlock Holmes and his endearing associate Dr. Watson or the menacing and helmeted Darth Vader, the ill-tempered Donald Duck, or the teenage sleuth Nancy Drew.
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Sherlock Holmes
fictional character
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Batman
fictional character
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the Avengers
fictional superhero team
Journalism
Extra, extra! Although the content and style of journalism and the medium through which it is delivered have varied significantly over the years, journalism has always given us a way to keep up with current events, so that we always have our fingers on the pulse.
Articles
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Katie Couric
American broadcaster
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Joseph Moses Levy
British journalist
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Christiane Amanpour
journalist
Libraries & Reference Works
Looking to impress your friends with your expansive knowledge of historical events, philosophical concepts, obscure words, and more? We may be biased, but it seems fair enough to say that reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and textbooks have provided such a service for years (in some cases, hundreds or even thousands of years). You can look for them at your local public library, which likely stores books, manuscripts, journals, CDs, movies, and other sources of information and entertainment.
Articles
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Pliny the Elder
Roman scholar
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Carolus Linnaeus
Swedish botanist
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dictionary
reference work
Literatures of the World
Literature knows no geographical bounds; authors can be found in nearly all corners of the globe. Find out more about regional literary styles and forms.
Articles
Literary Criticism
Everyone's a critic. But not all literary criticism involves judging the quality of a text; it can also focus on interpreting the meaning of a work or evaluating an author's place in literary history.
Articles
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Edward Said
American professor and literary critic
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Harold Bloom
American literary critic and author
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Charles Baudelaire
French author
Literary Terms
Want to be able to distinguish your limericks from your haikus and your paeans from your panegyrics? Dive deep into literary terms and forms.
Articles
- nonfictional prose
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tragedy
literature
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sonnet
poetic form
Nonfiction
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! Or that's the idea, at least. Nonfiction works center on facts and real events. Although there is some debate about which kinds of literature qualify as nonfiction, the genre typically includes books in the categories of biography, memoir, science, history, self-help, cooking, health and fitness, business, and more.
Articles
- journalism
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The Feminine Mystique
work by Friedan
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The Diary of a Young Girl
work by Frank
Novels & Short Stories
Whether it's Don Quixote, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, or The Fall of the House of Usher, novels and short stories have been enchanting and transporting readers for a great many years. There's a little something for everyone: within these two genres of literature, a wealth of types and styles can be found, including historical, epistolary, romantic, Gothic, and realist works, along with many more.
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Ulysses
novel by Joyce
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The Sound and the Fury
novel by Faulkner
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Catch-22
novel by Heller
Oratory
I have a dream... Four score and seven years ago... It's not a fluke that these phrases came to be so widely known and remembered. Truly great and persuasive speeches elicit strong emotional reactions in their audiences and may have broad historical repercussions. Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, quoted above, are two iconic examples of successful oratory, as are Elizabeth I's speech to the troops at Tilbury and Winston Churchill's first speech as prime minister to the House of Commons.
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St. Augustine
Christian bishop and theologian
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St. Ambrose
bishop of Milan
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Isocrates
Greek orator and rhetorician
Plays
All the world's a stage, as Shakespeare put it in As You Like It; and the stage is where you'll find performances of works by such famed playwrights as Anton Chekhov, Eugene O'Neill, and the Bard himself, among many others.
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Hamlet
work by Shakespeare
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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
play by Albee
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Henry IV, Part 1
work by Shakespeare
Poetry
Poetry is a vast subject that encompasses much more than just your average Roses are red, violets are blue poem. Delve into the category of literature that Percy Bysshe Shelley called a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted; sonnets, haikus, nursery rhymes, epics, and more are included.
Articles
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Leaves of Grass
work by Whitman
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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
work by Coleridge
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Mahabharata
Hindu literature