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Japanese literature

(Encyclopedia)Japanese literature, literary works produced in the language of the islands of Japan. See also Asian drama. The immense public demand for fiction in postwar Japan has been fed by the prolific o...

German literature

(Encyclopedia)German literature, works in the German language by German, Austrian, Austro-Hungarian, and Swiss authors, as well as by writers of German in other countries. The postwar decades saw a gradual litera...

Chinese literature

(Encyclopedia)Chinese literature, the literature of ancient and modern China. Fiction during the first years after the 1949 Communist revolution depicted the great social transformations taking place. Party leade...

Haakon IV

(Encyclopedia)Haakon IV (Haakon Haakonsson), 1204–63, king of Norway (1217–63), illegitimate son of Haakon III and grandson of Sverre. Secretly reared by the Birkebeiner faction (see Sverre), he was chosen king...

American literature

(Encyclopedia)American literature, literature in English produced in what is now the United States of America. The years immediately after World War I brought a highly vocal rebellion against established socia...

Dutch literature

(Encyclopedia)Dutch literature: see Dutch and Flemish literature. ...

Cornish literature

(Encyclopedia)Cornish literature. The literature of the Celtic language of Cornwall, which has been spoken only by bilingual speakers since the late 18th cent. The surviving pre-1800 literature consists largely of ...

children's literature

(Encyclopedia)children's literature, writing whose primary audience is children. See also children's book illustration. The contributions and innovations of the 19th cent. continued into the 20th cent., achieving...

English literature

(Encyclopedia)English literature, literature written in English since c.1450 by the inhabitants of the British Isles; it was during the 15th cent. that the English language acquired much of its modern form. For the...

Finnish literature

(Encyclopedia)Finnish literature. The first printed work in Finnish was the ABC book published c.1542 by Bishop Michael Agricola (1508–57). In 1642 the first complete translation of the Bible in Finnish appeared ...