| 释义 |
literature|ˈlɪtərətjʊə(r)|
Forms: 4 Sc. lateratour, 5–6 litt-, lytterature, 6 Sc. literatur, -uir, 6– literature.
[ad. (either directly or through F. littérature) L. litterātūra (whence Sp. literatura, It. letteratura, G. litteratur), f. littera a letter. Cf. lettrure.]
1. Acquaintance with ‘letters’ or books; polite or humane learning; literary culture. Now rare and obsolescent. (The only sense in Johnson and in Todd 1818.)
c1375Sc. Leg. Saints xxxi. (Eugenia) 53 Scho had leyryte..of þe sewine sciens..& part had of al lateratour. c1425Wyntoun Cron. ix. xxiii. 2227 Cunnand in to litterature, A seymly persone in stature [etc.]. 1432–50tr. Higden (Rolls) VI. 359 Seynte Grimbalde the monke, nobly instructe in litterature and in musyke. 1513Bradshaw St. Werburge ii. 4 The comyn people..Whiche without lytterature and good informacyon Ben lyke to Brute beestes. a1529Skelton Bowge of Courte 449, I know your vertu and your lytterature. 1581N. Burne Disput. xxv. 109 b, Ane pure man, quha..hes nocht sufficient literatur to vndirstand the scripture. 1605Bacon Adv. Learn. i. To the King §2. 2 There hath not beene..any King..so learned in all literature and erudition, diuine and humane. c1645Howell Lett. (1650) I. 346 In comparison of your spacious literature, I have held all the while but a candle to the sun. 1693J. Edwards Author. O. & N. Test. 239 Another person of infinite literature [Selden]. 1727Swift Let. Eng. Tongue Wks. 1755 II. i. 187 Till better care be taken in the education of our young nobility, that they may set out into the world with some foundation of literature. 1779–81Johnson L.P., Milton (1868) 37 He had probably more than common literature, as his son addresses him in one of his most elaborate Latin poems. Ibid. 62 His literature was unquestionably great. He read all the languages which are considered either as learned or polite. 1802M. Edgeworth Moral T. (1816) I. 206 A woman of considerable information and literature. 1862Borrow Wild Wales II. x. 104 The boots [is] a fellow without either wit or literature. 1880Howells Undisc. Country xix. 290 In many things he was grotesquely ignorant; he was a man of very small literature.
2. Literary work or production; the activity or profession of a man of letters; the realm of letters.
1779Johnson L.P., Cowley ⁋1 An author whose pregnancy of imagination and elegance of language have deservedly set him high in the ranks of literature. 1791–1823D'Israeli Cur. Lit. (1859) II. 407 Literature, with us, exists independent of patronage or association. 1830Scott Introd. to Lay Last Minstr. Poet. Wks. 1833–4 VI. 17, I determined that literature should be my staff, but not my crutch, and that the profits of my literary labour..should not..become necessary to my ordinary expenses. 1853Lytton My Novel vii. viii, Ah, you make literature your calling, sir? 1879Morley Burke 9 Literature, the most seductive, the most deceiving, the most dangerous of professions.
3. a. Literary productions as a whole; the body of writings produced in a particular country or period, or in the world in general. Now also in a more restricted sense, applied to writing which has claim to consideration on the ground of beauty of form or emotional effect. light literature: see light a.1 19.
This sense is of very recent emergence both in Eng. and Fr.
1812Sir H. Davy Chem. Philos. 6 Their literature, their works of art offer models that have never been excelled. 1838Arnold Hist. Rome I. 21 Many common words, which no nation ever derives from the literature of another, are the same in Greek and Latin. 1845M. Pattison Ess. (1889) I. 1 Such history, almost more than any other branch of literature, varies with the age that produces it. 1856Emerson Eng. Traits, Ability Wks. (Bohn) II. 41 There is no department of literature, of science, or of useful art, in which they have not produced a first rate book. 1857Buckle Civiliz. I. v. 244 Literature, when it is in a healthy and unforced state, is simply the form in which the knowledge of a country is registered. 1874Green Short Hist. vii. §7. 413 The full glory of the new literature broke on England with Edmund Spenser. 1879Seeley in Macm. Mag. XLI. 24 Those who cannot have recourse to foreign literatures are forced to put up with their ignorance.
b. The body of books and writings that treat of a particular subject.
1860Tyndall Glac. i. vi. 44, I was well acquainted with the literature of the subject. 1879G. C. Harlan Eyesight i. 9 It..has accumulated a literature of its own which an ordinary lifetime is hardly long enough to master. 1939[see normalizable a.]. 1969[see décollement 2]. 1971Nature 25 June 499/1 We have searched the literature for reliable radiometric ages for Late Pre-Cambrian glaciogenic rocks, but they seem to be rare. 1973Sci. Amer. June 55/3 A voluminous scientific literature accumulates each year on the normal vibrational modes of molecules in liquids and on optical phonons in crystals.
c. colloq. Printed matter of any kind.
1895Daily News 20 Nov. 5/2 In canvassing, in posters, and in the distribution of what, by a profane perversion of language, is called ‘literature’. 1900Westm. Gaz. 12 Oct. 2/1 A more judicious distribution of posters, and what is termed ‘literature’. 1938Wodehouse Code of Woosters i. 8 It is some literature from the Travel Bureau. 1962Observer 4 Mar. 37/1 (Advt.), Full details and literature from: Yugoslav National Tourist Office. 1973D. Francis Slay-Ride vii. 78, I talked my throat dry, gave away sheaves of persuasive literature. |