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.
Browse Subcategories
Featured content, August 10, 2022

Diagnosing 9 of Charles Dickens’s Most Famous Characters
Dickens had a knack for expertly portraying human diseases.
#WTFact / Literature

All the World’s a Stage: 6 Places in Shakespeare, Then and Now
Tour with the Bard from Denmark to Egypt.
List / Literature

What were Sir Walter Scott’s influences?
What were Sir Walter Scott’s influences?
Companion / Literature

Why Do Languages Die?
How does someone become the last known speaker of a language?
Demystified / Literature

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

English literature
English literature, the body of written works produced in the English language by inhabitants of the British Isles (including...
Encyclopedia / Literature

Portuguese literature
Portuguese literature, the body of writing in the Portuguese language produced by the peoples of Portugal, which includes...
Encyclopedia / Literature

children’s literature
children’s literature, the body of written works and accompanying illustrations produced in order to entertain or instruct...
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
-
fable
literature
-
The Little Prince
fable by Saint-Exupéry
-
Zora Neale Hurston
American author

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.
Articles
-
Batman
fictional character
-
the Avengers
fictional superhero team
-
Robin
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.
Articles
-
Bob Woodward
American journalist and author
-
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
American journalist and social reformer
-
Seymour Hersh
American journalist

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.
Articles
-
Noah Webster
American lexicographer
-
John Ray
English naturalist
-
Paracelsus
German-Swiss physician

Literature knows no geographical bounds; authors can be found in nearly all corners of the globe. 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.
Articles
-
Harold Bloom
American literary critic and author
-
Charles Baudelaire
French author
-
George Bernard Shaw
Irish dramatist and critic

Want to be able to distinguish your limericks from your haikus and your paeans from your panegyrics? Dive deep into literary terms and forms.
Articles
-
sonnet
poetic form
-
haiku
Japanese literature
-
picaresque novel
literature

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! Or that's the idea, at least. Nonfiction works center on 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
-
Unsafe at Any Speed
work by Nader
-
autobiography
literature
-
Silent Spring
work by Carson

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.
Articles
-
The Great Gatsby
novel by Fitzgerald
-
The Book of Negroes
novel by Hill
-
Dracula
novel by Stoker

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.
Articles
-
Cicero
Roman statesman, scholar, and writer
-
Patrick Henry
American statesman
-
Meister Eckhart
German mystic

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.
Articles
-
Oedipus Rex
play by Sophocles
-
Waiting for Godot
play by Beckett
-
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; sonnets, haikus, nursery rhymes, epics, and more are included.
Articles
-
Beowulf
Old English poem
- heroic poetry
-
epic
literary genre