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The history of literature begins with the history of writing, in the Bronze Age of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, although the oldest literary texts date to a full millennium after the invention of writing, to the late 3rd millennium BC. The earliest literary authors known by name are Ptahhotep and Enheduanna, dating to ca. the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, respectively. More about Literature...
The Western Chalukya Empire (973–1200 CE), in what is now southern India, produced a large body of literature in the Kannada language. This dynasty, which ruled most of the western Deccan in South India, is sometimes called the Kalyani Chalukya Dynasty, after its royal capital at Kalyani (now Basavakalyan), and sometimes called the Later Chalukya Dynasty for its theoretical relationship to the sixth-century Chalukya dynasty of Badami. For a brief period (1162–1183), the Kalachuris, a dynasty of kings who had earlier migrated to the Karnataka region from central India and served as vassals for several generations, exploited the growing weakness of their overlords and annexed the Kalyani. Around 1183, the last Chalukya scion, Somesvara IV, overthrew the Kalachuris to regain control of the royal city. But his efforts were in vain, as other prominent Chalukya vassals in the Deccan, the Hoysalas, the Kakatiyas and the Seunas destroyed the remnants of the Chalukya power.
Kannada literature from this period is usually categorised into the linguistic phase called Old-Kannada. It constituted the bulk of the Chalukya court's textual production and pertained mostly to writings relating to the socio-religious development of the Jain faith. The earliest well-known writers belonging to the Shaiva faith are also from this period. Under the patronage of Kalachuri King Bijjala II, whose prime minister was the well-known Kannada poet and social reformer Basavanna, a native form of poetic literature called Vachana literature (lit "utterance", "saying" or "sentence") proliferated. The beginnings of the Vachana poetic tradition in the Kannada-speaking region trace back to the early 11th century. Kannada literature written in the Sanskritic champu metre, composed of prose and verse, was popularised by the Chalukyan court poets. However, with the advent of the Veerashaiva (lit, "brave devotees of the god Shiva") religious movement in the mid-12th century, poets favoured the native tripadi (three-line verse composed of eleven ganas or prosodic units), hadugabba (song-poem) and free verse metres for their poems.
Felbrigge Psalter, by Anne de Felbrigge.
... that Jean le Rond d'Alembert, André Le Breton, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, Denis Diderot, Baron d'Holbach, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire were among the contributors to the 35 volume Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (pictured)?
... that Liza of Lambeth was W. Somerset Maugham's debut novel?
... that Titania is the queen of the fairies in William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream?
... that "The Great American Novel" is the concept of a novel that perfectly represents the spirit of life in the United States at the time of its publication; that the phrase derives from the title of an essay by John William DeForest published in 1869; and that William Carlos Williams, Clyde Brion Davis, and Philip Roth have actually written novels entitled The Great American Novel?
... that Ars longa, vita brevis" is part of an aphorism by Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, and that it refers to the art of medicine?
... that both Truffaut's La Sirène du Mississippi (1969) and Michael Cristofer's Original Sin (2001) are based on Cornell Woolrich's 1947 novel, Waltz into Darkness, a historical novel set in turn-of-the-century New Orleans?
... that Racing Demon is a 1990 play by David Hare about the Church of England?
| “ | I read part of it all the way through. | ” |
- 1488 - Helius Eobanus Hessus, German poet born
- 1840 - Fanny Burney, English novelist and diarist died
- 1848 - Hristo Botev, Bulgarian poet born
- 1883 - Khalil Gibran, Lebanese writer born
- 1885 - Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Norwegian writer died
- 1905 - Idris Davies, Welsh poet born
- 1910 - Morris Wright, American writer born
- 1915 - Alan Watts, English writer born
- 1923 - Jacobo Timerman, Argentine writer born
- 1931 - E. L. Doctorow, American author born
- 1945 - Allen Appel, American novelist born
- 1981 - A. J. Cronin, Scottish writer died
- 4 December, 2008 - The 2008 Finlandia Prize is awarded to Sofi Oksanen for Puhdistus.
- 11 November, 2008 - The Vietnamese Australian writer Nam Le has been awarded the 2008 Dylan Thomas Prize for The Boat. Guardian
- 14 October, 2008 - Indian writer Aravind Adiga wins the 2008 Man Booker Prize.
- 9 October, 2008 - French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio wins the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature.
New books
- A Mercy (November 11) by Toni Morrison
Subcategories of Literature:
Anthropomorphism – Books – Children's books – Essays – Essayists – Fiction – Genres – Gothic writing – LGBT literature – Literary awards – Literary characters – Literary concepts – Literary genres – Literary magazines – Literary movements – Literature by nationality – Literature in English – Medieval literature – Minimalism – Motif of harmful sensation – Narratology – Novels – Pataphysics – Plays – Poetry – Short stories – Small press publishers – Literature stubs – Theatre – Traditional stories – Writers – Young adult literature – Zines
WikiProjects connected with literature:
- Copyedit: Cotillion (novel), Imperium (novel), Nikolai Minsky, Die Räuber, Tea Classics, The Thin Red Line, More...
- Wikify: More...
- Merge: More...
- Start an article: fictography, Belarus literature, gutter rhyme, photobiography, seven by nine squares, working class literature, More...
- Expand: alter ego, English studies, Verisimilitude, Flash prose, German literature of the Baroque period, Identification, composite character, hexameter, internal rhyme, hypertextuality, Midnight Magic, Modernist poetry, high burlesque, Swahili literature, The Freedom Writers Diary, More...
