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.
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...)
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"A Song for Simeon" is a 37-line poem written in 1928 by American-English poet T. S. Eliot. It is one of five poems that Eliot contributed to the Ariel poems series of 38 pamphlets by several authors published by Faber and Gwyer. "A Song for Simeon" was the sixteenth in the series and included an illustration by avant garde artist Edward McKnight Kauffer. The poems, including "A Song for Simeon", were later published in both the 1936 and 1963 editions of Eliot's collected poems.
In 1927, Eliot had converted to Anglo-Catholicism and his poetry, starting with the Ariel Poems, took on a decidedly religious character. "A Song for Simeon" is seen by many critics and scholars as a discussion of the conversion experience. In the poem, Eliot retells the story of Simeon from the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, a just and devout Jew who encounters Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus entering the Temple of Jerusalem. Promised by the Holy Ghost that he would not die until he had seen the Saviour, Simeon sees in the infant Jesus the Messiah promised by the Lord and asks God to permit him to "depart in peace" (Luke 2:25–35). Several critics have debated whether Eliot's depiction of Simeon is a negative portrayal of a Jewish figure and evidence of anti-Semitism on Eliot's part.
Selected excerpt
“ | Something incomprehensible, vexatious and hopeless takes possession of the man's whole being. He forgets his comrade who is awaiting him, forgets the work that is to be accomplished that night, and with his whole excited spirit abandons himself to the dumb dog. He cannot convince himself that the dog does not comprehend either the danger, or his words, or the necessity of going home at once. He lifts him angrily by the skin of his neck and so carries him ten steps nearer to the house. There he deposits him carefully on the snow and commands: "Away with you, go home!" | ” |
— Leonid Andreyev, The Burglar |
More Did you know
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- ... that protests were organized against and calls were made out to expel writer Ekrem Eylisli from his native Azerbaijan following the publication of his novella?
- ... that most epic poems about the Babi Yar massacres were written by Russian and Ukrainian Jews who managed to survive the Holocaust?
- ... that Charles Stross's science-fiction novel Singularity Sky inspired a proposal to undermine the Taliban by giving every Afghan a free mobile phone?
- ... that after having written a poem on the 1625 great plague of London, the poet Abraham Holland died of the plague the following year?
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- ... that the cultural scholar Hermann Bausinger wrote a book about the history of literature from Swabia from the 18th century to the present, published for his 90th birthday?
- ... that Peter Demetz, who taught German literature at Yale University from 1956 to 1991, was born in Prague where he was persecuted under the Nazis and escaped the Communist regime in 1949?
- ... that despite a career writing queer literature, Chen Xue's 2019 novel Fatherless City had a "putatively straight premise"?
- ... that Bellman's song "Ge rum i Bröllopsgåln din hund!" describes "one of the wildest weddings in Swedish literature"?
- ... that Māori fiction written in English, now a key part of New Zealand literature, only emerged in the 1950s?
- ... that Charles Larson became one of the first Americans to teach African literature, after working in Nigeria for the Peace Corps to avoid the Vietnam draft?
Today in literature
- 1815 - Adolf Friedrich von Schack, German writer born
- 1865 - Irving Babbitt, American literary critic born
- 1924 - James Baldwin, American author (Go Tell It on the Mountain) born
- 1942 - Isabel Allende, Chilean author (The House of Spirits) born
- 1949 - James Fallows, journalist born
- 1955 - Caleb Carr, American novelist and military historian born
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