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 novels, plays, and poems. It includes 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. It can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
The term is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, which encompasses fiction written with the goal of literary merit.Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, letters, and essays. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles, or other written information on a particular subject. (Full article...)
General images -
Sair Tjerita Siti Akbari (Malay for Poem on the Story of Siti Akbari) is an 1884 Malay-language syair (poem) by Lie Kim Hok. Adapted indirectly from the Sjair Abdoel Moeloek, it tells of a woman who passes as a man to free her husband from the Sultan of Hindustan, who had captured him in an assault on their kingdom.
Written over a period of several years and influenced by European literature, Siti Akbari differs from earlier syairs in its use of suspense and emphasis on prose rather than form. It also incorporates European realist views to expand upon the genre, although it maintains several of the hallmarks of traditional syairs. Critical views have emphasised various aspects of its story, finding in the work an increased empathy for women's thoughts and feelings, a call for a unifying language in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and a polemic regarding the relation between tradition and modernity.
Siti Akbari was a commercial and critical success, seeing two reprints and a film adaptation in 1940. When Sjair Abdoel Moeloek's influence became clear in the 1920s, Lie was criticised as unoriginal. However, Siti Akbari remains one of the better known syairs written by an ethnic Chinese author. Lie was later styled as the "father of Chinese Malay literature".
Selected excerpt
“ | The entire world hung for months over this obscure problem—the most obscure, it seems to me, that has ever challenged the perspicacity of our police or taxed the conscience of our judges. The solution of the problem baffled everybody who tried to find it. It was like a dramatic rebus with which old Europe and new America alike became fascinated. That is, in truth—I am permitted to say, because there cannot be any author's vanity in all this, since I do nothing more than transcribe facts on which an exceptional documentation enables me to throw a new light—that is because, in truth, I do not know that, in the domain of reality or imagination, one can discover or recall to mind anything comparable, in its mystery, with the natural mystery of "The Yellow Room." | ” |
— Gaston Leroux, The Mystery of the Yellow Room |
More Did you know
- ... that Thio Tjin Boen's novel Tjerita Oeij Se, with a man who becomes rich after finding a kite made of paper money, has been read as a condemnation of interethnic marriage?
- ... that Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes is the first known children's book published in America?
- ... that Hella Haasse submitted her debut novel Oeroeg under the pseudonym Soeka toelis ("Like to write")?
- ... that Russian-born Yiddish playwright Peretz Hirshbein tried his hand at farming, both in the Catskills and in Argentina?
- ... that the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel The 34th Rule was intended to be an allegory for the Japanese American internment during the Second World War?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the Lviv branch of the Ukrderzhnatsmenvydav was the main publisher of Polish literature in the Soviet Union by 1941?
- ... that Robert Aiello's first novel was published after literary agents turned it down roughly 60 times?
- ... that the literary movement of créolie tries to integrate the identity of Réunion with France?
- ... that Manuel Carpio's 1849 poem is the earliest literary depiction of the weeping ghost La Llorona?
- ... that the poet Fernando Pessoa considered Alberto Caeiro, one of his own heteronyms, to be his master?
- ... that History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brothers in the Caribbean by C. G. A. Oldendorp was the first book to publish Igbo-language terms in 1777?
Today in literature
- 1540 - Helius Eobanus Hessus, German poet died
- 1606 - Philippe Desportes, French poet died
- 1713 - Denis Diderot, French philosopher and encyclopedist born
- 1889 - Teresa de la Parra, Venezuelan writer born
- 1911 - Flann O'Brien, Irish humorist born
- 1928 - Louise Fitzhugh, American author born
- 1936 - Václav Havel, playwright and President of the Czech Republic born
- 1936 - J. Slauerhoff, Dutch poet and novelist died
- 1939 - Marie-Claire Blais, French Canadian author and playwright born
- 1946 - Zahida Hina, Pakistani columnist and story writer born
- 1948 - Zoran Živković, Serbian writer born
- 1952 - Clive Barker, English writer born
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