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80-518: The medal is one of the oldest literary prizes in Canada, and is the only one awarded to a work of humour. It has been awarded every year since 1947 with the exception of 1959 when it was reported that no worthy entries had been submitted. The Stephen Leacock Associates , the non-profit organising body behind the award, was founded in 1946 by a loose group of Leacock’s friends and supporters. Although administered and presented separately, in early years

160-428: A "parallel products of a literate society". All ancient Greek literature was to some degree oral in nature, and the earliest literature was completely so. Homer 's epic poetry, states Michael Gagarin, was largely composed, performed and transmitted orally. As folklores and legends were performed in front of distant audiences, the singers would substitute the names in the stories with local characters or rulers to give

240-569: A Roman audience saw a Latin version of a Greek play. Literature in Latin would flourish for the next six centuries, and includes essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings. The Qur'an (610 AD to 632 AD), the main holy book of Islam , had a significant influence on the Arab language, and marked the beginning of Islamic literature . Muslims believe it was transcribed in the Arabic dialect of

320-432: A context without the use of writing to record and preserve history, scientific knowledge, and social practices. While some stories were told for amusement and leisure, most functioned as practical lessons from tribal experience applied to immediate moral, social, psychological, and environmental issues. Stories fuse fictional, supernatural, or otherwise exaggerated characters and circumstances with real emotions and morals as

400-537: A form of hermeneutics : knowledge via interpretation to understand the meaning of human texts and symbolic expressions – including the interpretation of texts which themselves interpret other texts. In the British and American literary establishment, the New Criticism was more or less dominant until the late 1960s. Around that time Anglo-American university literature departments began to witness

480-405: A means of teaching. Plots often reflect real life situations and may be aimed at particular people known by the story's audience. In this way, social pressure could be exerted without directly causing embarrassment or social exclusion . For example, rather than yelling, Inuit parents might deter their children from wandering too close to the water's edge by telling a story about a sea monster with

560-576: A more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form. Though in both ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica , writing may have already emerged because of the need to record historical and environmental events. Subsequent innovations included more uniform, predictable legal systems , sacred texts , and the origins of modern practices of scientific inquiry and knowledge-consolidation , all largely reliant on portable and easily reproducible forms of writing. Ancient Egyptian literature , along with Sumerian literature , are considered

640-537: A pouch for children within its reach. The enduring significance of oral traditions is underscored in a systemic literature review on indigenous languages in South Africa, within the framework of contemporary linguistic challenges. Oral literature is crucial for cultural preservation, linguistic diversity, and social justice, as evidenced by the postcolonial struggles and ongoing initiatives to safeguard and promote South African indigenous languages. Oratory or

720-617: A rise of a more explicitly philosophical literary theory , influenced by structuralism , then post-structuralism , and other kinds of Continental philosophy . It continued until the mid-1980s, when interest in "theory" peaked. Many later critics, though undoubtedly still influenced by theoretical work, have been comfortable simply interpreting literature rather than writing explicitly about methodology and philosophical presumptions. Today, approaches based in literary theory and continental philosophy largely coexist in university literature departments, while conventional methods, some informed by

800-465: A role in an individual's psychological development. Psychologists have also been using literature as a therapeutic tool. Psychologist Hogan argues for the value of the time and emotion that a person devotes to understanding a character's situation in literature; that it can unite a large community by provoking universal emotions, as well as allowing readers access to different cultures, and new emotional experiences. One study, for example, suggested that

880-458: A social, psychological, spiritual, or political role. Literary criticism is one of the oldest academic disciplines, and is concerned with the literary merit or intellectual significance of specific texts. The study of books and other texts as artifacts or traditions is instead encompassed by textual criticism or the history of the book . "Literature", as an art form, is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction , fiction written with

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960-409: Is "what is literature?" – although many contemporary theorists and literary scholars believe either that "literature" cannot be defined or that it can refer to any use of language. Literary fiction is a term used to describe fiction that explores any facet of the human condition , and may involve social commentary . It is often regarded as having more artistic merit than genre fiction , especially

1040-527: Is a "minimum age constraint for human presence in Victoria ", and also could be interpreted as evidence for the oral histories of the Gunditjmara people, an Aboriginal Australian people of south-western Victoria, which tell of volcanic eruptions being some of the oldest oral traditions in existence. An axe found underneath volcanic ash in 1947 had already proven that humans inhabited the region before

1120-471: Is a matter of some controversy. For example, The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism draws no distinction between literary theory and literary criticism, and almost always uses the terms together to describe the same concept. Some critics consider literary criticism a practical application of literary theory, because criticism always deals directly with particular literary works, while theory may be more general or abstract. Literary criticism

1200-641: Is also used in reference to non-written works: to " oral literature " and "the literature of preliterate culture". Etymologically , the term derives from Latin literatura/litteratura , "learning, writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from litera/littera , "letter." In spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or sung texts. Literature is often referred to synecdochically as "writing," especially creative writing , and poetically as "the craft of writing" (or simply "the craft"). Syd Field described his discipline, screenwriting , as "a craft that occasionally rises to

1280-452: Is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels , plays , and poems . It includes 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 . It can also have

1360-416: Is believed to have been recited or sung, employed as a way of remembering history , genealogy , and law. In Asia, the transmission of folklore, mythologies as well as scriptures in ancient India, in different Indian religions, was by oral tradition, preserved with precision with the help of elaborate mnemonic techniques . The early Buddhist texts are also generally believed to be of oral tradition, with

1440-408: Is itself a showcase for Canadian humour writing. The Newspacket has been published irregularly in recent years. In 1977 the group established an annual Student Award for Humour, which honours and encourages young Canadian writers from secondary and post-secondary levels with recognition and cash prizes for the top three. The Leacock Award is ceremonially led by a past winner or nominee, who holds

1520-594: Is often published in essay or book form. Academic literary critics teach in literature departments and publish in academic journals , and more popular critics publish their reviews in broadly circulating periodicals such as The Times Literary Supplement , The New York Times Book Review , The New York Review of Books , the London Review of Books , the Dublin Review of Books , The Nation , Bookforum , and The New Yorker . Literary criticism

1600-428: Is the study, evaluation , and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory , which is the philosophical analysis of literature's goals and methods. Although the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists. Whether or not literary criticism should be considered a separate field of inquiry from literary theory

1680-686: Is thought to have existed as far back as the classical period. In the 4th century BC Aristotle wrote the Poetics , a typology and description of literary forms with many specific criticisms of contemporary works of art. Poetics developed for the first time the concepts of mimesis and catharsis , which are still crucial in literary studies. Plato 's attacks on poetry as imitative, secondary, and false were formative as well. The Sanskrit Natya Shastra includes literary criticism on ancient Indian literature and Sanskrit drama. Later classical and medieval criticism often focused on religious texts, and

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1760-435: Is two inches (5.08 cm) in diameter and approximately 0.125 inches (.32 cm) thick. It weighs 3.125 ounces (88.59 g). On the obverse is a profile of Stephen Leacock’s head and the dates of his lifespan (1869–1944). The words "Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal Founded 1946" are worked around the perimeter. The reverse side features the words "Orillia “The Sunshine Town” Award for Canadian Humour". A jolly face represents

1840-460: Is typically announced in early May. In 1990, for the only time in the award's history they did not whittle the initial longlist down to a shortlist, but simply announced a shortlist of ten books which were all considered for the final award. The cash prize began in 1970, as a $ 2,500 award co-sponsored by Manulife Insurance and the Hudson's Bay Company . The following decades saw gradual increases in

1920-641: The Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age . The period between approximately the 6th to 1st centuries BC saw the composition and redaction of the two most influential Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana , with subsequent redaction progressing down to the 4th century AD such as Ramcharitmanas . The earliest known Greek writings are Mycenaean ( c.  1600 –1100 BC), written in

2000-567: The Linear B syllabary on clay tablets. These documents contain prosaic records largely concerned with trade (lists, inventories, receipts, etc.); no real literature has been discovered. Michael Ventris and John Chadwick , the original decipherers of Linear B, state that literature almost certainly existed in Mycenaean Greece , but it was either not written down or, if it was, it was on parchment or wooden tablets, which did not survive

2080-744: The New Critics , also remain active. Disagreements over the goals and methods of literary criticism, which characterized both sides taken by critics during the "rise" of theory, have declined. Some critics work largely with theoretical texts, while others read traditional literature; interest in the literary canon is still great, but many critics are also interested in nontraditional texts and women's literature , as elaborated on by certain academic journals such as Contemporary Women's Writing , while some critics influenced by cultural studies read popular texts like comic books or pulp / genre fiction . Ecocritics have drawn connections between literature and

2160-925: The Quraysh , the tribe of Muhammad . As Islam spread, the Quran had the effect of unifying and standardizing Arabic. Theological works in Latin were the dominant form of literature in Europe typically found in libraries during the Middle Ages . Western Vernacular literature includes the Poetic Edda and the sagas , or heroic epics, of Iceland, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf , and the German Song of Hildebrandt . A later form of medieval fiction

2240-575: The Vedas , dating back to 1500–1000 BC, and continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India . The Vedas are among the oldest sacred texts . The Samhitas (vedic collections) date to roughly 1500–1000 BC, and the "circum-Vedic" texts, as well as the redaction of the Samhitas, date to c.  1000 ‒500 BC, resulting in a Vedic period , spanning the mid-2nd to mid-1st millennium BC, or

2320-748: The Vedas , the Torah , the Bible, and the Quran . The King James Version of the Bible has been called "the most influential version of the most influential book in the world, in what is now its most influential language", "the most important book in English religion and culture", and "arguably the most celebrated book in the English-speaking world ," principally because of its literary style and widespread distribution. Prominent atheist figures such as

2400-617: The destruction of the Mycenaean palaces in the twelfth century BC . Homer 's epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , are central works of ancient Greek literature . It is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BC. Modern scholars consider these accounts legendary . Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally . From antiquity until

2480-462: The history of the book is a field of interdisciplinary inquiry drawing on the methods of bibliography , cultural history , history of literature , and media theory . Principally concerned with the production, circulation, and reception of texts and their material forms, book history seeks to connect forms of textuality with their material aspects. Among the issues within the history of literature with which book history can be seen to intersect are:

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2560-696: The invention of printing . Prior to printing, distributed works were copied manually, by scribes . The Chinese inventor Bi Sheng made movable type of earthenware c.  1045 and was spread to Korea later. Around 1230, Koreans invented a metal type movable printing. East metal movable type was spread to Europe between the late 14th century and early 15th century. In c.  1450 , Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type in Europe. This invention gradually made books less expensive to produce and more widely available. Early printed books, single sheets, and images created before 1501 in Europe are known as incunables or incunabula . "A man born in 1453,

2640-399: The utilitarians and Benthamites , promoted the possibility of including courses in English literary study in the newly formed London University ". This further developed into the idea of the study of literature being "the ideal carrier for the propagation of the humanist cultural myth of a well educated, culturally harmonious nation". The widespread education of women was not common until

2720-500: The 9th century, notably by Al-Jahiz in his al-Bayan wa-'l-tabyin and al-Hayawan , and by Abdullah ibn al-Mu'tazz in his Kitab al-Badi . The literary criticism of the Renaissance developed classical ideas of unity of form and content into literary neoclassicism , proclaiming literature as central to culture, entrusting the poet and the author with preservation of a long literary tradition. The birth of Renaissance criticism

2800-466: The Enlightenment theoreticians so that the business of Enlightenment became a business with the Enlightenment. This development – particularly of emergence of entertainment literature – was addressed through an intensification of criticism. Many works of Jonathan Swift , for instance, were criticized including his book Gulliver's Travels , which one critic described as "the detestable story of

2880-585: The European Romantic era. Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) is the first major English woman novelist, while Aphra Behn is an early female dramatist. Nobel Prizes in Literature have been awarded between 1901 and 2020 to 117 individuals: 101 men and 16 women. Selma Lagerlöf (1858 – 1940) was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature , which she was awarded in 1909. Additionally, she

2960-567: The European canon of Romantic literature , there is one notable exception, the French novelist and memoirist Amantine Dupin (1804 – 1876) best known by her pen name George Sand . One of the more popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, being more renowned than both Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s, Sand is recognised as one of the most notable writers of

3040-665: The Grand Historian , c.  94 BC ). Ancient Chinese literature had a heavy emphasis on historiography, with often very detailed court records. An exemplary piece of narrative history of ancient China was the Zuo Zhuan , which was compiled no later than 389 BC, and attributed to the blind 5th-century BC historian Zuo Qiuming . In ancient India , literature originated from stories that were originally orally transmitted. Early genres included drama , fables , sutras and epic poetry . Sanskrit literature begins with

3120-526: The Latin littera , "letter," essentially writing. Alternatives such as "oral forms" and "oral genres" have been suggested, but the word literature is widely used. Australian Aboriginal culture has thrived on oral traditions and oral histories passed down through tens of thousands of years. In a study published in February 2020, new evidence showed that both Budj Bim and Tower Hill volcanoes erupted between 34,000 and 40,000 years ago. Significantly, this

3200-548: The Yahoos". The British Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century introduced new aesthetic ideas to literary studies, including the idea that the object of literature need not always be beautiful, noble, or perfect, but that literature itself could elevate a common subject to the level of the sublime . German Romanticism , which followed closely after the late development of German classicism , emphasized an aesthetic of fragmentation that can appear startlingly modern to

3280-554: The amount of the prize under a number of sponsors , reaching its current value of $ 15,000 in 2009, sponsored by the TD Bank Financial Group . As of 2018, both remaining shortlist authors each receive cash prizes of $ 3,000. In 1969 the Associates established a quarterly newsletter called The Newspacket to commemorate the centenary of the author’s birth. The publication prints excerpts from nominated books, and

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3360-520: The art of public speaking was considered a literary art for a significant period of time. From Ancient Greece to the late 19th century, rhetoric played a central role in Western education in training orators, lawyers, counselors, historians, statesmen, and poets. Around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration in Mesopotamia outgrew human memory, and writing became

3440-514: The author's psychology or biography, which became almost taboo subjects) or reader response : together known as Wimsatt and Beardsley's intentional fallacy and affective fallacy . This emphasis on form and precise attention to "the words themselves" has persisted, after the decline of these critical doctrines themselves. In 1957 Northrop Frye published the influential Anatomy of Criticism . In his works Frye noted that some critics tend to embrace an ideology, and to judge literary pieces on

3520-544: The award was announced as part of the Governor General's Awards announcements, later moving to a separate announcement. Each year the Associates’ board of directors appoints a panel of suitable judges from around the country, and also commissions readers who rank and select from submitted works a long list of ten books, which is later narrowed to a short list of three books (previously five). The shortlist

3600-522: The basis of their adherence to such ideology. This has been a highly influential viewpoint among modern conservative thinkers. E. Michael Jones, for example, argues in his Degenerate Moderns that Stanley Fish was influenced by his own adulterous affairs to reject classic literature that condemned adultery. Jürgen Habermas , in Erkenntnis und Interesse [1968] ( Knowledge and Human Interests ), described literary critical theory in literary studies as

3680-436: The digital era had blurred the lines between online electronic literature and other forms of modern media. Definitions of literature have varied over time. In Western Europe, prior to the 18th century, literature denoted all books and writing. It can be seen as returning to older, more inclusive notions, so that cultural studies , for instance, include, in addition to canonical works , popular and minority genres . The word

3760-541: The earliest and most influential works of ancient Greek literature. Classical Greek genres included philosophy, poetry, historiography, comedies and dramas. Plato (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) and Aristotle (384–322 BC) authored philosophical texts that are regarded as the foundation of Western philosophy , Sappho ( c.  630  – c.  570 BC ) and Pindar were influential lyric poets , and Herodotus ( c.  484  – c.  425 BC ) and Thucydides were early Greek historians. Although drama

3840-547: The eruption of Tower Hill. Oral literature is an ancient human tradition found in "all corners of the world." Modern archaeology has been unveiling evidence of the human efforts to preserve and transmit arts and knowledge that depended completely or partially on an oral tradition, across various cultures: The Judeo-Christian Bible reveals its oral traditional roots; medieval European manuscripts are penned by performing scribes; geometric vases from archaic Greece mirror Homer's oral style. (...) Indeed, if these final decades of

3920-515: The first by comparing inconsistencies in the transmitted versions of literature from various oral societies such as the Greek, Serbia and other cultures, then noting that the Vedic literature is too consistent and vast to have been composed and transmitted orally across generations, without being written down. According to Goody, the Vedic texts likely involved both a written and oral tradition, calling it

4000-406: The first full-fledged crisis in modernity of the core critical-aesthetic principles inherited from classical antiquity , such as proportion, harmony, unity, decorum , that had long governed, guaranteed, and stabilized Western thinking about artworks. Although Classicism was very far from spent as a cultural force, it was to be gradually challenged by a rival movement, namely Baroque, that favoured

4080-590: The genre. The Hebrew religious text, the Torah , is widely seen as a product of the Persian period (539–333 BC, probably 450–350 BC). This consensus echoes a traditional Jewish view which gives Ezra , the leader of the Jewish community on its return from Babylon, a pivotal role in its promulgation. This represents a major source of Christianity's Bible, which has had a major influence on Western literature. The beginning of Roman literature dates to 240 BC, when

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4160-421: The goal of artistic merit , but can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography , diaries , memoirs , letters , and essays . Within this broader definition, literature includes non-fictional books , articles, or other written information on a particular subject. Developments in print technology have allowed an ever-growing distribution and proliferation of written works, while

4240-495: The grave and oblivion. The very best in literature is annually recognized by the Nobel Prize in Literature , which is awarded to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel , produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction" (original Swedish: den som inom litteraturen har producerat det mest framstående verket i en idealisk riktning ). Some researchers suggest that literary fiction can play

4320-562: The honorary title "Mayor of Mariposa". The duties of this position include giving a speech at the awards ceremony, and representing the Leacock Foundation in other public appearances including McGill University 's annual Leacock Lecture. Held by Dan Needles until 2018, the position was taken over by Drew Hayden Taylor in 2019 and renamed "Grand Chief of Mariposa" to reflect Taylor's First Nations heritage. The medal, cast in silver and designed by Canadian sculptor Emanuel Hahn,

4400-571: The late Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have praised the King James Version as being "a giant step in the maturing of English literature" and "a great work of literature", respectively, with Dawkins adding: "A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian". Literary criticism A genre of arts criticism , literary criticism or literary studies

4480-436: The level of art." A value judgment definition of literature considers it as consisting solely of high quality writing that forms part of the belles-lettres ("fine writing") tradition. An example of this is in the 1910–1911 Encyclopædia Britannica , which classified literature as "the best expression of the best thought reduced to writing". The use of the term "literature" here poses some issues due to its origins in

4560-431: The millennium have taught us anything, it must be that oral tradition never was the other we accused it of being; it never was the primitive, preliminary technology of communication we thought it to be. Rather, if the whole truth is told, oral tradition stands out as the single most dominant communicative technology of our species as both a historical fact and, in many areas still, a contemporary reality. The earliest poetry

4640-406: The more controversial criteria of the author's religious beliefs. These critical reviews were published in many magazines, newspapers, and journals. The commercialization of literature and its mass production had its downside. The emergent literary market, which was expected to educate the public and keep them away from superstition and prejudice, increasingly diverged from the idealistic control of

4720-521: The most commercially oriented types, but this has been contested in recent years, with the serious study of genre fiction within universities. The following, by the British author William Boyd on the short story, might be applied to all prose fiction: [short stories] seem to answer something very deep in our nature as if, for the duration of its telling, something special has been created, some essence of our experience extrapolated, some temporary sense has been made of our common, turbulent journey towards

4800-399: The natural sciences. Darwinian literary studies studies literature in the context of evolutionary influences on human nature. And postcritique has sought to develop new ways of reading and responding to literary texts that go beyond the interpretive methods of critique . Many literary critics also work in film criticism or media studies . Related to other forms of literary criticism,

4880-650: The new direction taken in the early twentieth century. Early in the century the school of criticism known as Russian Formalism , and slightly later the New Criticism in Britain and in the United States, came to dominate the study and discussion of literature in the English-speaking world. Both schools emphasized the close reading of texts, elevating it far above generalizing discussion and speculation about either authorial intention (to say nothing of

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4960-569: The nineteenth century, and because of this, literature until recently was mostly male dominated . George Sand was an idea. She has a unique place in our age. Others are great men ... she was a great woman. Victor Hugo , Les funérailles de George Sand There were few English-language women poets whose names are remembered until the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century some notable individuals include Emily Brontë , Elizabeth Barrett Browning , and Emily Dickinson (see American poetry ). But while generally women are absent from

5040-432: The presence of familiar cultural values in literary texts played an important impact on the performance of minority students. Psychologist Maslow's ideas help literary critics understand how characters in literature reflect their personal culture and the history. The theory suggests that literature helps an individual's struggle for self-fulfillment. Religion has had a major influence on literature, through works like

5120-415: The present day, the influence of Homeric epic on Western civilization has been significant, inspiring many of its most famous works of literature, music, art and film. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education; to Plato , Homer was simply the one who "has taught Greece" – ten Hellada pepaideuken . Hesiod 's Works and Days (c.700 BC) and Theogony are some of

5200-447: The reader of English literature, and valued Witz – that is, "wit" or "humor" of a certain sort – more highly than the serious Anglophone Romanticism. The late nineteenth century brought renown to authors known more for their literary criticism than for their own literary work, such as Matthew Arnold . However important all of these aesthetic movements were as antecedents, current ideas about literary criticism derive almost entirely from

5280-416: The several long religious traditions of hermeneutics and textual exegesis have had a profound influence on the study of secular texts. This was particularly the case for the literary traditions of the three Abrahamic religions : Jewish literature , Christian literature and Islamic literature . Literary criticism was also employed in other forms of medieval Arabic literature and Arabic poetry from

5360-624: The stories a local flavor and thus connect with the audience by making the historicity embedded in the oral tradition as unreliable. The lack of surviving texts about the Greek and Roman religious traditions have led scholars to presume that these were ritualistic and transmitted as oral traditions, but some scholars disagree that the complex rituals in the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations were an exclusive product of an oral tradition. Writing systems are not known to have existed among Native North Americans (north of Mesoamerica) before contact with Europeans. Oral storytelling traditions flourished in

5440-400: The sun resting on waves, and the latitude and longitude of Orillia, Ontario, Canada, appear in small figures at the top. Two small fish swim beneath the waves, and two large mosquitoes are depicted — one on the sun, the other in the water. Below the design, there is room for the winner’s name and date to be inscribed, and below that a small maple leaf emblem. Literature Literature

5520-613: The transgressive and the extreme, without laying claim to the unity, harmony, or decorum that supposedly distinguished both nature and its greatest imitator, namely ancient art. The key concepts of the Baroque aesthetic, such as " conceit ' ( concetto ), " wit " ( acutezza , ingegno ), and " wonder " ( meraviglia ), were not fully developed in literary theory until the publication of Emanuele Tesauro 's Il Cannocchiale aristotelico (The Aristotelian Telescope) in 1654. This seminal treatise – inspired by Giambattista Marino 's epic Adone and

5600-535: The work of the Spanish Jesuit philosopher Baltasar Gracián – developed a theory of metaphor as a universal language of images and as a supreme intellectual act, at once an artifice and an epistemologically privileged mode of access to truth. In the Enlightenment period (1700s–1800s), literary criticism became more popular. During this time literacy rates started to rise in the public; no longer

5680-488: The world's oldest literatures . The primary genres of the literature of ancient Egypt — didactic texts, hymns and prayers, and tales—were written almost entirely in verse; By the Old Kingdom (26th century BC to 22nd century BC), literary works included funerary texts , epistles and letters, hymns and poems, and commemorative autobiographical texts recounting the careers of prominent administrative officials. It

5760-633: The world's first print cultures . Much of Chinese literature originates with the Hundred Schools of Thought period that occurred during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (769‒269 BC). The most important of these include the Classics of Confucianism , of Daoism , of Mohism , of Legalism , as well as works of military science (e.g. Sun Tzu 's The Art of War , c.  5th century BC ) and Chinese history (e.g. Sima Qian 's Records of

5840-582: The year of the fall of Constantinople, could look back from his fiftieth year on a lifetime in which about eight million books had been printed, more perhaps than all the scribes of Europe had produced since Constantine founded his city in A.D. 330." Eventually, printing enabled other forms of publishing besides books. The history of newspaper publishing began in Germany in 1609, with the publishing of magazines following in 1663. In late 1820s England, growing political and social awareness, "particularly among

5920-434: Was in 1498, with the recovery of classic texts, most notably, Giorgio Valla 's Latin translation of Aristotle 's Poetics . The work of Aristotle, especially Poetics , was the most important influence upon literary criticism until the late eighteenth century. Lodovico Castelvetro was one of the most influential Renaissance critics who wrote commentaries on Aristotle's Poetics in 1570. The seventeenth-century witnessed

6000-567: Was not until the early Middle Kingdom (21st century BC to 17th century BC) that a narrative Egyptian literature was created. Many works of early periods, even in narrative form, had a covert moral or didactic purpose, such as the Sanskrit Panchatantra ( 200 BC – 300 AD), based on older oral tradition. Drama and satire also developed as urban cultures, which provided a larger public audience, and later readership for literary production. Lyric poetry (as opposed to epic poetry)

6080-626: Was often the speciality of courts and aristocratic circles, particularly in East Asia where songs were collected by the Chinese aristocracy as poems, the most notable being the Shijing or Book of Songs (1046– c.  600 BC ). In ancient China , early literature was primarily focused on philosophy, historiography , military science , agriculture, and poetry . China, the origin of modern paper making and woodblock printing , produced

6160-435: Was popular in ancient Greece, of the hundreds of tragedies written and performed during the classical age , only a limited number of plays by three authors still exist: Aeschylus , Sophocles , and Euripides . The plays of Aristophanes ( c.  446  – c.  386 BC ) provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy , the earliest form of Greek Comedy, and are in fact used to define

6240-407: Was reading exclusive for the wealthy or scholarly. With the rise of the literate public, the swiftness of printing and commercialization of literature, criticism arose too. Reading was no longer viewed solely as educational or as a sacred source of religion; it was a form of entertainment. Literary criticism was influenced by the values and stylistic writing, including clear, bold, precise writing and

6320-641: Was the romance , an adventurous and sometimes magical narrative with strong popular appeal. Controversial, religious, political and instructional literature proliferated during the European Renaissance as a result of the Johannes Gutenberg 's invention of the printing press around 1440, while the Medieval romance developed into the novel. Publishing became possible with the invention of writing but became more practical with

6400-621: Was the first woman to be granted a membership in The Swedish Academy in 1914. Feminist scholars have since the twentieth century sought to expand the literary canon to include more women writers. A separate genre of children's literature only began to emerge in the eighteenth century, with the development of the concept of childhood . The earliest of these books were educational books, books on conduct, and simple ABCs—often decorated with animals, plants, and anthropomorphic letters. A fundamental question of literary theory

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