Literature Atlas
Claims this atlas currently marks as unsettled or as tested and found false. A debated fact is one scholars hold competing positions on; a debunked one has been checked against the record and found not to hold. Both are kept in view rather than quietly smoothed over, with the reasoning that put each one where it stands.
69 statements.
The Novella, DescriptionThe novella is a work of prose fiction longer than a short story and shorter than a novel, conventionally reckoned at roughly seventeen thousand to forty thousand words, built around a single incident, character or turning point rather than the multiple subplots a novel's length affords. The Cambridge History of the English Short Story situates the novella explicitly between the novel and the story, its own hybrid territory rather than a mere length category.
The Novella, Forms
Standing
Concerns Description
Currently States The novella is a work of prose fiction longer than a short story and shorter than a novel, conventionally reckoned at roughly seventeen thousand to forty thousand words, built around a single incident, character or turning point rather than the multiple subplots a novel's length affords. The Cambridge History of the English Short Story situates the novella explicitly between the novel and the story, its own hybrid territory rather than a mere length category.
Since Judith Leibowitz's 1970 dissertation, published in 1974 as Narrative Purpose in the Novella, some scholars argue the novella is not simply a length category but a generically distinct form of its own; see the recorded dissent on this fact.
Source The Cambridge History of the English Short Story
The Odyssey, Composed, From (Year)-700
The Odyssey, Works
Standing
Concerns Composed, From (Year)
Currently States -700
Dated by scholarly convention to the eighth or seventh century BCE; as an oral-tradition poem fixed in writing only later, no single composition date is settled.
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
The Panchatantra, Composed, From (Year)-300
The Panchatantra, Works
Standing
Concerns Composed, From (Year)
Currently States -300
Dating is uncertain; the surviving Sanskrit text is traditionally attributed to Vishnu Sharma, and estimates for its compilation range from around the third century BCE to the third century CE, drawing on an older oral fable tradition.
Source Panchatantra (Wikipedia)
The Panchatantra, Composed, To (Year)300
The Panchatantra, Works
Standing
Concerns Composed, To (Year)
Currently States 300
Dating is uncertain; estimates for the text's compilation range from around the third century BCE to the third century CE, and the version that reached Persia by the sixth century CE already shows revision from any single original.
Source Panchatantra (Wikipedia)
The Tale of Genji, Composed, From (Year)1006
The Tale of Genji, Works
Standing
Concerns Composed, From (Year)
Currently States 1006
Most reference sources place composition in the first decade of the eleventh century, commonly cited as substantially complete by around 1008 based on a contemporary diary reference, but the work's composition across many chapters over an extended period, and uncertainty about its precise chronology, mean no single start year is agreed.
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Theatre of the Absurd, Period, From (Year)1950
Theatre of the Absurd, Movements
Standing
Concerns Period, From (Year)
Currently States 1950
Martin Esslin's own 1961 study, which named the movement, treats Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano (1950) as an early landmark and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1953) as its most influential work; because Esslin grouped independently written plays under a single retrospective label rather than describing a self-declared movement, no single founding date is universally accepted.
Source Theatre of the Absurd (Wikipedia)
They Flee from Me, Composed, From (Year)1557
They Flee from Me, Works
Standing
Concerns Composed, From (Year)
Currently States 1557
1557 is the year of first (posthumous) print publication in Tottel's Miscellany; the poem is generally believed to have been composed earlier, during Wyatt's lifetime (he died in 1542), but no specific composition year is documented.
Source They Flee from Me (Wikipedia)
Water Margin, Composed, From (Year)1330
Water Margin, Works
Standing
Concerns Composed, From (Year)
Currently States 1330
A wealth of bibliographical evidence names Shi Nai'an, Luo Guanzhong (fl. 1330-1400), or both, as the novel's principal compiler; a printed revision based on earlier editions was published during the reign of the Ming Jiajing Emperor, Shizong, 1522-1566, becoming the ancestral edition of the most widely circulated versions.
Source Water Margin (Wikipedia)
Water Margin, Composed, To (Year)1400
Water Margin, Works
Standing
Concerns Composed, To (Year)
Currently States 1400
1400 marks the later bound of Luo Guanzhong's traditional floruit (fl. 1330-1400) as a possible co-compiler; the ancestral printed edition was published during the reign of the Ming Jiajing Emperor, Shizong, 1522-1566.
Source Water Margin (Wikipedia)