literature: Quick Facts

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Antique book open to the frontispiece of The Iliad of Homer, showing the title and an engraved portrait of a bearded man, with old books in the background.

Japanese calligraphy

Dune by Frank Herbert

Latin American literary greatness

Roy Lichtenstein: Whaam!

Neo-Assyrian clay tablet from the 7th century BC inscribed with dense cuneiform writing, known as the Flood Tablet from the Epic of Gilgamesh, displayed in the British Museum.

A photo of Joy Harjo, a woman with long dark hair, framed by a stylized border with a wood grain and light streaks.

Yellow letter tiles on a teal background spell 'what is a haiku?' with abstract calligraphic scribbles in the background

Open book with Regency-era illustration of Jane Austen holding a book; large script “J. Austen” across; background of handwritten text.

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English literature French literature African literature Novel American literature Arabic literature Italian literature children’s literature German literature Spanish literature Architecture film dance Printmaking Sculpture Painting Drawing History of photography theatre music

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Key People

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Laura

literary subject

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Mr. W.H.

acquaintance of Shakespeare

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

British writer

Portrait of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

British poet and critic

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold

British critic

Sir Philip Sidney

Sir Philip Sidney

English author and statesman

portrait of Germaine de Staël

Germaine de Staël

French-Swiss author

James Russell Lowell.

James Russell Lowell

American poet and critic

Algernon Charles Swinburne, watercolour by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1862; in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

English poet

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Edward Said

American professor and literary critic

Georg Brandes, 1866

Georg Brandes

Danish writer

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Qian Zhongshu

Chinese scholar and author

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Elaine Showalter

American literary critic and teacher

C.P. Snow

C.P. Snow

British scientist and writer

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Mikhail Bakhtin

Russian philosopher and literary critic

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Lionel Trilling

American critic

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Claude Fauriel

French scholar

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Carolyn Heilbrun

American author and literary critic

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Horatio Hale

American anthropologist

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Viktor Shklovsky

Soviet author

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) portrait by Carl Van Vecht April 3, 1938. Writer, folklorist and anthropologist celebrated African American culture of the rural South.

Who Said It? Quotations of Women in Literature Quiz

Row of colorful books on a bookshelf. Stack of books, pile of books, literature, reading. Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society

The Literary World

Hand with pencil writing on page. (handwriting; write)

Word Nerd Quiz

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:

Poetry: First Lines

Illustration of John Stuart Mill by G.K. Chesterton from "Biography for Beginners" by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. No date on book, but c. 1905.

Literary Terms: A Pop Quiz

4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul

Famous Poets and Poetic Form

Books. Lord Alfred Tennyson. Lord Byron. Poetry. Reading. Literacy. Library. Antique. A stack of four antique leather bound books.

Literary Hodgepodge

1928 photo of Virginia Woolf a British author and member of the intelligentsia circle known as the Bloomsbury Group.

Memorable Beginnings Vol. 2: Match the Opening Line to the Work

Books. Reading. Publishing. Print. Literature. Literacy. Rows of used books for sale on a table.

A Study of Writers

Bunyan's Dream, 1680, (1893). Frontispiece to John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, 4th edition, 1680. Illustration from, A Short History of the English People, by John Richard Green, illustrated edition, Volume III, Macmillan and Co, London, NY, 1893

Read Between the Lines

Leo Tolstoy. Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, portrait. Russian writer, philosopher and mystic.

Memorable Beginnings Vol. 1: Match the Opening Line to the Work

American author Toni Morrison, 2009. (Nobel Prize for Literature 1993)

Nobel Laureates in Literature

Textbook chalkboard and apple. Fruit of knowledge. Hompepage blog 2009, History and Society, school education students

The Literary World (Famous Novels)