Literature

• James Canton, a lecturer in literature at the University of Essex, teaches the MA “Wild Writing: Literature and the Environment”
• Helen Cleary, a nonfiction writer and editor, studied English literature at Cambridge University and completed the creative writing MA at the University of East Anglia
• Ann Kramer, a writer and historian, has written numerous books on art, literature, and the humanities, and has taught adult literacy and literature classes
• The concept of attachment involves a strong reciprocal emotional bond between an infant and a primary caregiver
• Schaffer and Emerson conducted a famous 1964 study on attachment, aiming to identify stages of attachment and find a pattern in the development of attachment between infants and parents
• In the study, 60 babies from Glasgow were participants, and the interactions between infants and carers were analyzed to determine the influence of 'sensitive responsiveness' of parents on the formation of attachment
• Storytelling is as old as humanity itself, capturing events and beliefs of communities, with history preserved in legends and mythologies passed down through generations
• Written accounts emerged with ancient civilizations, evolving from recording transactions to preserving oral histories integral to cultures
• Literature, as defined by "anything that is written down," is primarily associated with works of fiction, drama, and poetry, with values of merit and superiority intrinsic to the canon of literature
• The literary canon, a collection of works agreed to be of exceptional quality, has evolved since the 19th century, with cultural and literary theorists challenging the authority of traditional lists
• The term "canon" was borrowed from ecclesiastical canons of authorized religious texts, with the literary canon formed mostly from familiar works of Western European literature
• Literature continues to satisfy a spiritual or psychological need, opening readers' minds to the world and its variety, with works penned centuries ago still enchanting and amusing today
• The Literature Book takes a chronological journey through literary works, exploring texts from various cultures and movements that influenced future generations
• Around 4,000 years ago, the first written stories were poems based on oral traditions, with rhyme, rhythm, and meter aiding memory, leading to the development of Greek drama and Arabic prose fiction
• The Renaissance era saw new translations of ancient texts, humanist education, and the translation of the Bible into vernacular speech, while the rise of the novel in the 18th century marked a significant shift in literary expression
• The German Sturm und Drang movement influenced literature with stories driven by the emotions of idiosyncratic heroes rather than plot and action
• In England, Romantic poets testified to the power of nature to heal the human soul
• The word "genre" was increasingly applied to fiction's subsets, such as novels in the gothic genre
• In the 19th century, Romanticism was replaced by social realism, depicted in the works of Jane Austen and Gustave Flaubert
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky described his novel Crime and Punishment as "fantasy realism," with dark interior monologues of the murderer Raskolnikov having elements of a psychological thriller
• Modern literature diversified into multiple genres and subgenres, including dystopian novels, fictional autobiography, and Holocaust writing
• The vocabulary of literature expanded to describe styles of writing, such as "epistolary" novels written in the form of letters, and terms like "Bildungsroman" and "picaresque" denoting coming-of-age tales
• Novels in the vernacular voice broadened the scope of national literature, capturing the diversity of people, like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain did in the US
• In the early 20th century, Modernist writers experimented with stylistic features like stream-of-consciousness writing and fragmented narratives to represent the anguish and alienation of their changing world
• After World War II, literature production slowed as many writers were involved in the war effort, producing propaganda or reporting from the front rather than writing literature
• Postmodernist writers and theorists focused on the artifice of writing, demanding more of the reader than engaging with a realist narrative
• Postcolonial writing emerged in countries like Nigeria, South Africa, and India, raising the status of writers like Gabriel García Márquez from South America
• Modern literature includes voices of feminists, civil rights campaigners, gay people, black and Native Americans, and immigrants, blurring the distinction between classic and popular fiction
• Global publishing, independent and internet publishing, global literature courses, and national and international book prizes have brought novels from various countries like Australia, Canada, South Africa, India, the Caribbean, and modern China to a world audience
• The shi tradition of Chinese poetry reached its high point during the Tang dynasty, in works by poets such as Li Bai and Du Fu
• Nordic settlers on the island of Iceland established a general assembly known as the Althing for their new commonwealth
• In the “Golden Age” of Islamic culture, classical Arabic poetry flourished and the One Thousand and One Nights were collected for the first time
• In Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, Chrétien de Troyes introduced the idea of chivalric romance in the context of the Arthurian legends
• Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji and Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book use life in Japan’s Heian Court as their backdrop
• The Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf is composed, the oldest surviving epic poem in Old English
• The Epic of Gilgamesh tells how the oppressive ruler of the Mesopotamian city of Uruk is taught a lesson and goes on to become a local hero
• The Epic of Gilgamesh tells of Gilgamesh’s quest for the secret of eternal life and of his return to Uruk—still a mortal, but a wiser man and more noble ruler
• The Book of Changes, attributed to King Wen of Zhou, is about divination and is often referred to as one of the Five Classics in Chinese literature
• The Book of Changes was thought to be a source of great wisdom, complementing volumes of Confucian philosophy, history, etiquette, and poetry
• The Mahabharata, one of the great Sanskrit epics, probably first took shape in the 9th century BCE and reached its final form around the 4th century BCE