Anthology

For other uses, see Anthology (disambiguation).

In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works. It may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories or songs.

In genre fiction, the term anthology is often used to group together a number of shorter works. These may be short stories or television programs, The items are often written by different authors but they can be by the same person. Anthologies have unrelated groups of characters and settings. An anthrology is normally collected into a single item such as a book for publication. Complete collections of works are often called "complete works" or "opera omnia" (Latin version).

Etymology

The word was first used in the English language in the 17th century. It comes from the Greek word, {{lang|el|ἀνθολογία) (anthologic). This word means "a collection of blossoms".

Television

Many television programs are either anthologies' or a combination of an anthology and a series. While this type of anthology normally has the same group of characters and setting, each episode is a separate story. With this type of program, the viewer does not need to watch every episode to understand each one. Some programs use both serial programming, where each episode it part of a bigger story, and anthology episodes. These episodes are not directly part of the larger story but normally use the same characters and setting. These "semi-anthology" programs let the writers tell about other parts of the world they have created. This type of anthology was first seen in the mid to late 1960s and is still being used over half a century later.

Related pages

• Diwan (poetry)
• Book series