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Prakrit literature

(Encyclopedia)Prakrit literature. By the 6th cent. b.c. the people of India were speaking and writing languages that were much simpler than classical Sanskrit. These vernacular forms, of which there were several, a...

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...

Catalan literature

(Encyclopedia)Catalan literature, like the Catalan language, developed in close connection with that of Provence. In both regions the rhymed songs of the troubadours flourished as an art form from the 11th to the 1...

Persian literature

(Encyclopedia)Persian literature, literary writings in the Persian language, nearly all of it written in the area traditionally known as Persia, now Iran. The 15th cent. period of the second Turko-Tartar invasi...

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...

Ukrainian literature

(Encyclopedia)Ukrainian literature, literary writings in the Ukrainian language. Kievan Church Slavonic texts of the 11th cent. and W Ukrainian texts of the 13th cent. show Ukrainian linguistic features, which pred...

scaldic poetry

(Encyclopedia)scaldic or Skaldic poetry: see Old Norse literature. ...

Portuguese literature

(Encyclopedia)Portuguese literature, writings in Portuguese. The literature of Brazil is considered separately (see Brazilian literature). The modern period in Portuguese letters dates from the establishment o...

Australian literature

(Encyclopedia)Australian literature, the literature of Australia. Because the vast majority of early Australian settlers were transported prisoners, the beginnings of Australian literature were oral rather than wri...

Armenian literature

(Encyclopedia)Armenian literature. The Armenian Church fostered literature, and the principal early works are religious or hagiographical, most of them translations. The first major Armenian literary work is a 5th ...