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, January 24, 2021
Was there a feud between William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway?
Was there a feud between William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway?
Companion / Literature

Why Do We Say “A Pair of Pants”?
Well, there are more than a pair of answers.
Demystified / Literature

The Bizarre Origins of the Words Nerd and Geek
On the nature of nerdiness…or geekiness.
#WTFact / Literature

Latin American literature
Latin American literature, the national literatures of the Spanish-speaking countries of the Western Hemisphere. Historically,...
Encyclopedia / Literature

Short story
Short story, brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and that usually deals with only a few characters....
Encyclopedia / Literature

Brazilian literature
Brazilian literature, the body of written works produced in the Portuguese language in Brazil. Brazil was claimed for Portugal...
Encyclopedia / Literature

Literature
Literature, a body of written works. The name has traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose...
Encyclopedia / Literature
Literature Quizzes
Literature Videos
Literature Subcategories

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

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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Black Panther
fictional character
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Doctor Strange
fictional character
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Spider-Man
fictional character

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.
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Hunter S. Thompson
American journalist
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Maj Sj?wall and Per Wahl??
Swedish journalists and authors
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Dorothy Thompson
American journalist and writer

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.
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Edward O. Wilson
American biologist
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Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon
French naturalist
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Pliny the Elder
Roman scholar

Literature knows no geographical bounds; authors can be found in nearly all corners of the globe (except, perhaps, on the open sea). Find out more about regional literary styles and forms.
Articles

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.
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T.S. Eliot
American-English poet, playwright, and literary critic
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Roland Barthes
French critic
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Helen Archibald Clarke and Charlotte Endymion Porter
American writers

This general category includes a selection of more specific topics.
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Epic
literary genre
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Epistolary novel
literature
- Literature

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! Nonfiction works are all about 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

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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The Hunchback of Notre Dame
novel by Hugo
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A Farewell to Arms
novel by Hemingway
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Emma
novel by Austen

"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. Ambrose
bishop of Milan
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Isocrates
Greek orator and rhetorician
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Oratory
rhetoric

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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Oedipus Rex
play by Sophocles
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Waiting for Godot
play by Beckett
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Macbeth
work by Shakespeare

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," and which includes sonnets, haikus, nursery rhymes, epics, and more.
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- Utopian poetry
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Metre
prosody
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Sonnet
poetic form