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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"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Its publication made Poe widely popular in his lifetime. Although it did not bring him much financial success it was soon reprinted, parodied, and it nevertheless remains one of the most famous poems ever written.
First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow fall into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. Sitting on a bust of Pallas, the raven seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore". The poem makes use of a number of folk and classical references.
Poe claimed to have written the poem very logically and methodically, intending to create a poem that would appeal to both critical and popular tastes, as he explained in his 1846 follow-up essay "The Philosophy of Composition". The poem was inspired in part by a talking raven in the novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty by Charles Dickens. Poe borrows the complex rhythm and meter of Elizabeth Barrett's poem "Lady Geraldine's Courtship", and makes use of internal rhyme as well as alliteration throughout.
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“ | When in 1892 I settled in Macao, a small island near the mouth of the Canton river, to practise medicine, I little dreamt that in four years time I should find myself a prisoner in the Chinese Legation in London, and the unwitting cause of a political sensation which culminated in the active interference of the British Government to procure my release. It was in that year however, and at Macao, that my first acquaintance was made with political life; and there began the part of my career which has been the means of bringing my name so prominently before the British people. | ” |
— Sun Yat-sen, Kidnapped in London |
More Did you know
- ... that John Donne's Devotions upon Emergent Occasions is one of only seven printed works he acknowledged authorship of?
- ... that Amir Hamzah left one of his fifty poems in his prison cell before being executed?
- ... that the Hongwu Emperor was so fond of Gao Ming's play The Lute that he ordered it to be performed every day at court?
- ... that both the Star Trek novels The Tears of the Singers and Uhura's Song included Uhura as a main character as the authors thought she was underdeveloped in the show?
- ... that author Colum McCann described the subject of his 2003 novel Dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, as "a monster"?
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that more than 1000 tons of paper were used every year printing car literature for the British Motor Corporation by the in-house Nuffield Press?
- ... that the 1985 manga series Tomoi contains the first depiction of HIV/AIDS in any literary medium in Japan?
- ... that The Inland Whale, by Theodora Kroeber, sought to demonstrate the literary merit of Indigenous American oral traditions?
- ... that Soviet German literary critic Richard Knorre was injured in an explosion during the siege of Leningrad?
- ... 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 Sheila Egoff, Canada's first professor of children's literature, returned to her library work immediately after retirement?
Today in literature
- 1579 - Luís Vélez de Guevara, Spanish writer born
- 1819 - Herman Melville, American writer (Moby Dick) born
- 1950 - Jim Carroll, American poet born
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