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 prose, fiction, drama, poetry, and including 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, and 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, memoir, 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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La Peau de chagrin (The Magic Skin or The Wild Ass's Skin) is an 1831 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of his physical energy. La Peau de chagrin belongs to the Études philosophiques group of Balzac's sequence of novels, La Comédie humaine.
Although the novel uses fantastic elements, its main focus is a realistic portrayal of the excesses of bourgeois materialism. Balzac's renowned attention to detail is used to describe a gambling house, an antique shop, a royal banquet, and other locales. He also includes details from his own life as a struggling writer, placing the main character in a home similar to the one he occupied at the start of his literary career. The central theme of La Peau de chagrin is the conflict between desire and longevity. The magic skin represents the owner's life-force, which is depleted through every expression of will, especially when it is employed for the acquisition of power. Ignoring a caution from the shopkeeper who offers him the skin, the protagonist greedily surrounds himself with wealth, only to find himself miserable and decrepit at the story's end.
Selected excerpt
“ | Sleep is a pathless labyrinth, Dark to the gaze of moons and suns, Through which the exile clue of dreams, A gossamer thread, obscurely runs. |
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— Clark Ashton Smith, "The Maze of Sleep" |
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 Emelia Quinn argues that "monstrous vegans" have recurred in literature since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?
- ... that Alexandre Dumas's travel book Le Corricolo, published in 1843, contains one of the earliest literary accounts of Neapolitan pizza?
- ... that the poet Fernando Pessoa considered Alberto Caeiro, one of his own heteronyms, to be his master?
- ... that Hammersmith by Gustav Holst was acclaimed by Frederick Fennell for having "some of the most treacherous stretches of music making" in band literature?
- ... that the Three Bards are the most celebrated poets in the history of Polish literature?
- ... that Galadriel's gift of some of her hair to Gimli in The Lord of the Rings has echoes in both English literature and Norse legend?
Today in literature
- 1921 - Karel van het Reve, Dutch writer born
- 1934 - Ruskin Bond, Indian author born
- 1984 - John Betjeman, English poet died
- 2002 - Walter Lord, American writer died
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