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literature
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
literature
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
18th-/19th- etc century art/music/literature
▪ Nothing compares with Florence's beautiful 15th-century architecture.
subversive propaganda/literature
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
classical
▪ In classical literature and ethics hypocrisy is condemned as undermining the essential distinction between good and evil.
▪ There are many references in classical literature to Orphic poetry and Orphic rites.
▪ For example: is the subject taken from classical literature with its firm structural rules like those which govern Balanchine's Apollo?
▪ This lasting antipathy coexisted in his mind with a rare mastery of philosophical debate and classical literature.
contemporary
▪ A number of important, and highly linked, themes emerged during our discussion of the contemporary literature on the biotic order.
▪ This proliferating self-examination, however, has often been seen as an unlikeable, irresponsible tendency in contemporary literature.
▪ Their written forms, like autobiographies, biographies, and interviews, make up a large part of contemporary western feminist literature.
▪ These procedures are generating an increasingly large part of contemporary feminist literature.
▪ In the 1750s, the place of women in contemporary literature was much more widely recognized.
▪ Don't feel virtuous: charity is only a by-product of this very good sampler of contemporary literature.
great
▪ It is equally important for them to read and hear and speak the great literature of the past.
▪ And I imagined it, as one does the illusions of great art and literature, in the most real fashion possible.
▪ One replies that one can live by it as by great literature.
▪ Barthes managed to leave the great works of literature intact.
▪ Plenty of singers, wisely or otherwise, have modelled themselves on the heroes and villains of great literature.
▪ Disagreement is mainly about whether great literature or the children's own environment and experiences should provide the stimuli for this work.
▪ Life, she felt vaguely but powerfully, was more than fervent chats about great literature.
▪ Probably because it is high entertainment, not serious social comment or great literature.
medical
▪ A peer review would require no more than a scan of the vast international medical literature.
▪ Doctors stop short of saying the disease is always fatal, but medical literature paints a bleak picture.
modern
▪ Like most modern literature, the new narrative reflects the ontological uncertainty of contemporary man.
▪ It is a fact that the classics of Yiddish literature are also the classics of the modern Hebrew literature.
recent
▪ The position and height of the surge are determined by the relative importance of recent and older literature in different disciplines.
▪ One such is provided in recent Marxist literature.
▪ Here, the recent literature suggests that four main things may affect the initial selection of graduates.
▪ It should provide a readable condensation of the recent literature: a critical appraisal, not a mere catalogue.
▪ This was doing reasonably well by seventeenth-century standards for recent literature.
▪ Hart's Book selection and use in academic libraries provides a useful summary of recent literature.
▪ Both works were published two decades ago, and need to be supplemented by evaluation of more recent literature.
▪ All chapters include numerous references to the recent literature, but this is not merely a compilation of the work of others.
relevant
▪ Finally the extensive index and reference citation helps the reader to find relevant literature.
▪ When this begins to happen, you will know that the relevant literature is being covered by your search.
▪ Perhaps its most useful asset is that it enables the user to locate references in relevant literature.
▪ Product leaflets and other materials in support of submissions should not be discouraged and suppliers may well be requested to enclose relevant literature.
▪ Such quantities are determined by standard tests on standard samples and the data collected in the relevant literature.
▪ The librarian may be able to carry out a relevant literature search.
scientific
▪ Aitken's work covered a wide spectrum of physical science, and he had some ninety-eight contributions published in scientific literature.
▪ In 1988, he stumbled across an indirect link in the scientific literature between Raynaud's disease and dietary fish oil.
▪ Then, it was described in the scientific literature.
▪ He also wrote extensively in the scientific literature.
▪ In clinical practice we try to keep up with the scientific literature and adapt our actions accordingly.
▪ Their failure to make the most of the scientific literature seems to begin early in their academic careers.
technical
▪ Documentary research in the technical literature was undertaken to plan interviews and to identify key areas of technological innovation and technical uncertainty.
▪ Much of the technical literature on the subject seems to confuse the two sets of questions distinguished in this section.
▪ These matters are the subject of a large and technical literature.
▪ In the technical literature, virtual unanimity reigns: most of the variation among individual IQs is due to variation in genes.
▪ Many of the requests are for practical, technical and vocational literature for all levels, from secondary schooling upwards.
▪ The technical literature suggests that structural factors may have been more important than price factors in explaining the persistent deficit.
■ NOUN
research
▪ The index is good but the references do not provide easy access to the research literature.
▪ Pantony scrupulously studied the research literature, using comprehensive computer searches to find studies that might be relevant.
▪ In the child research literature there seems to be a greater concern over ethical issues than in other areas.
▪ What can be gleaned from the complex research literature?
▪ The result is clear - there is large research literature on dissatisfaction and disillusionment.
▪ Needless to say, the research literature is full of argument and counter-argument about the explanations of agreed associations between factors.
review
▪ A moral: Our literature reviews should not ignore literature.
▪ To be sure, the literature review has several real uses.
▪ In the first instance this includes a literature review.
■ VERB
produce
▪ Another important aim for the pupil is to acquire knowledge and understanding of the civilisation which produced the literature to be studied.
▪ There is a problem if a fund has produced sales literature with a positive rating that changes for the worse.
▪ A world which produces a literature that, at its best, celebrates essential and transcendent human qualities.
▪ The only way they can market their products is to produce literature detailed enough to convince the prospective buyer.
▪ It has inevitably produced a massive literature.
read
▪ We want people who have read some literature.
▪ Do you ever read twentieth-century literature?
▪ I had read the literature, listened to the tape and examined the glossy brochure.
▪ We know from reading the literature that there are many ways to implement a neural network.
▪ When I read the Epoch literature I am always convinced by it.
▪ I read the literature, and became acquainted with the work of John Gurdon.
▪ Become determined to develop your expertise using a self-help approach. Read the literature and learn.
▪ If you read all the official literature you will conclude that the result is a tremendous success.
study
▪ Literature is not a book on how to study literature, but on how to use it for language practice.
▪ In graduate school, when I was studying literature, to know the writers and critics was to know a universe.
▪ Zborowski had arrived in Paris before the war to study literature on a government grant.
▪ Pantony scrupulously studied the research literature, using comprehensive computer searches to find studies that might be relevant.
write
▪ It is Leavis rather than Lewis who, when he writes of literature, sounds washed in the blood of the Lamb.
▪ Tok Pisin has a writing system, a literature, and even radio programs.
▪ He writes a literary literature that causes no pain.
▪ Often the easiest way to help children write literature is to first encourage them to draw.
▪ She wrote travel literature and lived much of her later life abroad.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
Romantic art/literature etc
▪ One of the characteristics of Romantic literature is the interaction or rapport between man and nature.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ "The Sun Also Rises" is a classic of American literature.
▪ a master's degree in Asian literature
▪ I teach Japanese literature.
▪ medical literature
▪ Mitterrand's oratory and writings displayed a wide grasp of history, philosophy, religion and literature.
▪ She's studying European literature at the University of Illinois.
▪ She is a professor of language and literature at Arizona State University.
▪ the Nobel Prize for Literature
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Income tax guidebooks are the ultimate in obligation literature.
▪ Like most modern literature, the new narrative reflects the ontological uncertainty of contemporary man.
▪ Some researchers have argued that hypotheses are formulated before the review of literature formally begins.
▪ The romantic thread, developed primarily through art and literature, idealizes family relationships.
▪ The struggle produced at least two first-rate publications in the field of political literature.
▪ These were present in literature and art as well as in medicine.
▪ We want people who have read some literature.
▪ Where needed the Police are supplying road safety literature, advice and instruction.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Literature

Literature \Lit"er*a*ture\ (l[i^]t"[~e]r*[.a]*t[-u]r; 135), n. [F. litt['e]rature, L. litteratura, literatura, learning, grammar, writing, fr. littera, litera, letter. See Letter.]

  1. Learning; acquaintance with letters or books.

  2. The collective body of literary productions, embracing the entire results of knowledge and fancy preserved in writing; also, the whole body of literary productions or writings upon a given subject, or in reference to a particular science or branch of knowledge, or of a given country or period; as, the literature of Biblical criticism; the literature of chemistry.

  3. The class of writings distinguished for beauty of style or expression, as poetry, essays, or history, in distinction from scientific treatises and works which contain positive knowledge; belles-lettres.

  4. The occupation, profession, or business of doing literary work.
    --Lamb.

    Syn: Science; learning; erudition; belles-lettres.

    Usage: See Science. -- Literature, Learning, Erudition. Literature, in its widest sense, embraces all compositions in writing or print which preserve the results of observation, thought, or fancy; but those upon the positive sciences (mathematics, etc.) are usually excluded. It is often confined, however, to belles-lettres, or works of taste and sentiment, as poetry, eloquence, history, etc., excluding abstract discussions and mere erudition. A man of literature (in this narrowest sense) is one who is versed in belles-lettres; a man of learning excels in what is taught in the schools, and has a wide extent of knowledge, especially, in respect to the past; a man of erudition is one who is skilled in the more recondite branches of learned inquiry.

    The origin of all positive science and philosophy, as well as of all literature and art, in the forms in which they exist in civilized Europe, must be traced to the Greeks.
    --Sir G. C. Lewis.

    Learning thy talent is, but mine is sense.
    --Prior.

    Some gentlemen, abounding in their university erudition, fill their sermons with philosophical terms.
    --Swift.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
literature

late 14c., from Latin literatura/litteratura "learning, a writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from litera/littera "letter" (see letter (n.1)). Originally "book learning" (it replaced Old English boccræft), the meaning "literary production or work" is first attested 1779 in Johnson's "Lives of the English Poets" (he didn't include this definition in his dictionary, however); that of "body of writings from a period or people" is first recorded 1812.\n\nGreat literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

[Ezra Pound, "ABC of Reading"]

\nMeaning "the whole of the writing on a particular subject" is from 1860; sense of "printed matter generally" is from 1895. The Latin word also is the source of Spanish literatura, Italian letteratura, German Literatur.
Wiktionary
literature

n. 1 The body of all written works. 2 The collected creative writing of a nation, people, group(,) or culture. 3 All the papers, treatises(,) etc. published in academic journals on a particular subject. 4 Written fiction of a high standard.

Related phrases:
WordNet
literature

  1. n. creative writing of recognized artistic value

  2. the humanistic study of a body of literature; "he took a course in Russian lit" [syn: lit]

  3. published writings in a particular style on a particular subject; "the technical literature"; "one aspect of Waterloo has not yet been treated in the literature"

  4. the profession or art of a writer; "her place in literature is secure"

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Literature (card game)

Literature is a card game for 4 to 12 players, most commonly played with 6 or 8 players in two teams. It uses a modified version of the Western 52- playing card deck; four cards with the same face value (typically 2's or 8's) are removed, leaving 48 cards. The game is sometimes called Canadian Fish, after the similar Go Fish.

Literature

Literature, in its broadest sense, is any single body of written works. More restrictively, it is writing considered as an art form, or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage. Its Latin root literatura/litteratura (derived itself from littera: letter or handwriting) was used to refer to all written accounts, though contemporary definitions extend the term to include texts that are spoken or sung ( oral literature). Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose; it can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel, short story or drama; and works are often categorized according to historical periods or their adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations ( genre).

The concept has changed meaning over time: nowadays it can broaden to include non-written verbal art forms, and thus it is difficult to agree on its origin, which can be paired with that of language or writing itself. Developments in print technology have allowed an evergrowing distribution and proliferation of written works, culminating in electronic literature.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "literature".

These ancient Martians had been a highly cultivated and literary race, but during the vicissitudes of those trying centuries of readjustment to new conditions, not only did their advancement and production cease entirely, but practically all their archives, records, and literature were lost.

Typically readers simply circle a number that corresponds to an advertiser, and the publication forwards the cards to the company, which can follow up with a phone contact or by sending requested literature.

I found that there is, in fact, a rather extensive literature on visual agnosia in general, and prosopagnosia in particular.

I headed off what might have been a provoking defence of the computer by asking Albacore to what extent he felt his book might bring Beddoes in out of the cold at the perimeter of British romantic literature and into its warm centre.

Some of the secret is given away by the preponderance of sexual symbolism in alchemical literature.

It does not, I should suppose, lie in the way of The Century, whose general audience on both sides of the Atlantic takes only an amused interest in this singular revival of a traditional literary animosity--an anachronism in these tolerant days when the reading world cares less and less about the origin of literature that pleases it--it does not lie in the way of The Century to do more than report this phenomenal literary effervescence.

Young Conservative and Young Socialist and Libertarian literature, a group of Anachronists clustered on a lawn around two masked and gauntleted men with their wooden battle-swords, striking at one another while their referee or marshall or whatever they called him circled slowly around the fighters.

Amsterdam he called at the sports shop and got a handful of literature about aqualungs, and a technical handout in rather difficult French from the makers.

Neill is clearly of opinion that the Captains of the MAY-FLOWER and the DISCOVERY were identical, and this belief is shared by such authorities in Pilgrim literature as Young, Prince, Goodwin, and Davis, and against this formidable consensus of opinion, Arber, unless better supported, can hardly hope to prevail.

For he approached the idea of the sacred vessel, not as did Sir Giles, through antiquity and savage folklore, nor as did the Archdeacon, through a sense of religious depths in which the mere temporary use of a particular vessel seemed a small thing, but through exalted poetry and the high romantic tradition in literature.

For a short time the hold of athleticism was weakened, and as it weakened, the hold of literature became more firm.

They have brought in materialism, atheism, class war, weak happiness ideals, race suicide, social atomism, racial promiscuity, decadence in the arts, erotomania, disintegration of the family, private and public dishonor, slatternly feminism, economic fluctuation and catastrophe, civil war in the family of Europe, planned degeneration of the youth through vile films and literature, and through neurotic doctrines in education.

There is a case in French literature, apparently well authenticated, in which submersion for six minutes was followed by subsequent recovery.

Vienna, for they were popular among the Pan-German and anti-Semitic groups whose literature he devoured so avidly in those early days.

As far as axiology is concerned, some evaluative criteria are always in place during our encounters with literature.