In Literature
- Eights may refer to octosyllabic, usually iambic, lines of verse.
- The drott-kvaett, an Old Icelandic verse, consisted of a stanza of eight regular lines.
- In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, eight is a holy number and is considered taboo. Eight is not safe to be said by wizards on the Discworld and is the number of Bel-Shamharoth. Also, there are eight days in a Disc week and eight colours in a Disc spectrum, the eighth one being Octarine
- Lewis Carroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark has 8 "fits" (cantos), which is noted in the full name "The Hunting of the Snark - An Agony, in Eight Fits
- 8 apparitions appear to Macbeth in Act 4 scene 1 of Shakespeare's Macbeth as representations of the 8 descendants of Banquo
Read more about this topic: 8 (number)
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“Views of women, on one side, as inwardly directed toward home and family and notions of men, on the other, as outwardly striving toward fame and fortune have resounded throughout literature and in the texts of history, biology, and psychology until they seem uncontestable. Such dichotomous views defy the complexities of individuals and stifle the potential for people to reveal different dimensions of themselves in various settings.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old. What do we have from the past? Art and thought. That’s what lasts. That’s what continues to feed people and given them an idea of something better. A better state of one’s feelings or simply the idea of a silence in one’s self that allows one to think or to feel. Which to me is the same.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)