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.
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Featured content, March 27, 2025
Diagnosing 9 of Charles Dickens’s Most Famous Characters
Dickens had a knack for expertly portraying human diseases.
7 Quintessential National-Spelling-Bee-Winning Words
Can you spell these? (T-h-e-s-e!)
What jobs did Sir Walter Scott have?
What jobs did Sir Walter Scott have?
Why Do Languages Die?
How does someone become the last known speaker of a language?
Persian literature
Persian literature, body of writings in New Persian (also called Modern Persian), the form of the Persian language written...
Japanese literature
Japanese literature, the body of written works produced by Japanese authors in Japanese or, in its earliest beginnings, at...
African American literature
African American literature, body of literature written by Americans of African descent. Beginning in the pre-Revolutionary...
American literature
American literature, the body of written works produced in the English language in the United States. Like other national...
Literature Quizzes
Punctuation
How do you use the Oxford comma? What’s the difference between an en dash and an em dash? How do you use ellipses? Test your...
Jane Austen
Test your knowledge about Jane Austen and her works with this quiz!
English Romantic Poets
Are you well versed in English Romantic poetry? Do you know about the lives of the poets? Test your knowledge with this quiz.
Latin American Authors
How much do you know about the magical realists, poets, and novelists from Latin America? Test your knowledge with this quiz!
Literature of Italy Quiz
The peninsula now known as Italy has been a home to great writers for millennia. Take this short quiz to learn how much you...
Who Wrote That? (Part 1) Quiz
Who wrote Utopia? How about Cry, the Beloved Country? Use this quiz to test how much you know about who...
Who Wrote That? (Part 2) Quiz
Who wrote Moll Flanders? How about Song of Solomon? Use this quiz to test how much you know about who wrote...
Who Wrote That? (Part 3) Quiz
Who wrote Anatomy of Melancholy? How about Man and Superman? Use this quiz to test how much you know about...
Literary Terms (Part One) Quiz
Do you know what a tercet is? How about the term for a passage spoken directly to the audience by a character in a play?...
Literary Terms: A Pop Quiz
Here’s a very short, very difficult quiz to test how well you know your literary terms. How quickly can you finish it?
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.
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Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson
Norwegian author
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The Thousand and One Nights
collection of Middle Eastern and Indian stories
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Brothers Grimm
German folklorists and linguists
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.
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Richard III
fictional character
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Hamlet
fictional character
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Thor
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.
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Amy Goodman
American journalist, columnist, and author
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Barbara Walters
American journalist
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Walter Cronkite
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.
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Newberry Library
library, Chicago, Illinois, United States
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James D. Dana
American geologist and mineralogist
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Claude Bernard
French scientist
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
- Irish literature
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New Journalism
American literary movement
- Latin American literature
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.
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Northrop Frye
Canadian literary critic
- literary criticism
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Samuel Johnson
English author
Want to be able to distinguish your limericks from your haikus and your paeans from your panegyrics? Dive deep into literary terms and forms.
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sonnet
poetic form
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haiku
Japanese literature
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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
- journalism
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The Feminine Mystique
work by Friedan
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The Diary of a Young Girl
work by Frank
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.
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The War of the Worlds
novel by Wells
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The Fall of the House of Usher
story by Poe
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The Catcher in the Rye
novel by Salinger
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.
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Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
French bishop
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Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau
French politician and orator
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Daniel Webster
American politician
; 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.
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A Doll’s House
play by Ibsen
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A Midsummer Night’s Dream
work by Shakespeare
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The Cherry Orchard
play by Chekhov
; sonnets, haikus, nursery rhymes, epics, and more are included.
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Mahabharata
Indian epic
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Symbolism
literary and artistic movement
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Odyssey
epic by Homer