Literature

:For other uses of Literature, see Literature (disambiguation).

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Literature is literally "an acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary (from the Latin littera meaning "an individual written character (letter)"). The term has generally come to identify a collection of texts. The word "literature" as a common noun can refer to any form of writing, such as essays; "Literature" as a proper noun refers to a whole body of literary work, world-wide or relating to a specific culture.There is often confusion regarding the actual definition of literature and Literature. The word "literature" can be both singular and plural, likewise with "Literature". This being said, "literatures" is also plural. However "Literature", with emphasis on uppercase L, is a subset of the more general "literature". "Literature" refers to written work of exceptional intellectual calibre, whereas "literature" can be anything written. Accordingly, War and Peace by Tolstoy is "Literature" (singular) as well as "literature" (singular), while Dickens's work is part of "Literature" (plural) as well as "literature" (plural). Consequently, a Harry Potter novel will be included in "literature" (singular) but not in "Literature" (singular) since most people would not deem the books as sufficiently intellectual or meaningful at an academic level. Likewise the Harry Potter collection by JK Rowling will be included in "literature" (plural) but not in "Literature" (plural). What is intellectual and meaningful is subjective and often controversial or dubious, but it does not interfere with the above definition. Many would also argue on what forms "Literature" must be to indeed be "Literature", such as whether or not Neil Gaiman's The Sandman can be in fact Literature due to it being a graphic novels series.

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Letter: A letter is a written message from one party to another. Letters are usually intended to be received by someone far away. Before widespread availability of typewriters and computers, letters were always written by hand. Nowadays, letters are only widely used by companies who send out letters to larg...

Oxford English Dictionary: The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a comprehensive dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP). Generally regarded as the definitive dictionary of the English language, it includes about 290,500 main entries comprising 350 million printed characters. In addition to the headwords o...

Latin: Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The ...

Literature related Images and Photos (experimental)

Literature II

Golf Literature II

Discovery of San Domingo From "Science and Literature in the Middle Ages and Renaissance"

Author Ralph Ellison Against Brick Wall at American Academy on Rome Fellowship in Literature