Literature Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for scholars and enthusiasts of literature. It only takes a minute to sign up.

Sign up to join this community
Anybody can ask a question
Anybody can answer
The best answers are voted up and rise to the top

Top Questions

25 votes
3 answers
7k views

Meaning of "the field was found to be plowed as thoroughly as any young man at Oxford" in 'The Book of Dragons'

12 votes
3 answers
7k views

Is there a name for the literary device in the expression "Thanks, I hate it."?

9 votes
3 answers
4k views

Meaning of "the way they used to use up old women, in Russia, sweeping dirt" in "The Handmaid's Tale"

15 votes
2 answers
6k views

Why did literary critic Harold Bloom say something that didn't correspond to reality regarding Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone?

12 votes
1 answer
977 views

Meaning of "furnished with a pipe and a supply of cold without" in Trollope's "Orley Farm"

9 votes
3 answers
714 views

Who is the 'pale Titan-woman' in Swinburne's 'Ave atque Vale'?

4 votes
2 answers
682 views

Meaning of "My owners'll have to rank with the rest on their charter-party"?

2 votes
1 answer
569 views

Is this an editing error in this part of 1985 by Anthony Burgess?

1 vote
1 answer
274 views

Does the phrase "Jack of all trades, often times better than a master of one" come from Shakespeare?

4 votes
1 answer
157 views

Meaning of "Am I clear? Have I a certificate, or what have I to do to get one? And when will it be dated? You can't think what hangs by it!"

4 votes
1 answer
208 views

Symbolism in saying that a grove, in the agitation of a storm, cannot be delineated from its picture in water

3 votes
1 answer
215 views

What is the source of the quote "You can see a lot, just by looking"?

4 votes
2 answers
43 views

What did Walt Whitman mean by "a pennant universal"?

4 votes
1 answer
252 views

Greek Alexander Romance - Plot device or other function of Alexander's surreptitious stealing of Persian drinking cups?

2 votes
1 answer
118 views

Legend about the Invention of Steel

4 votes
1 answer
95 views

In which C.S. Lewis essay or book chapter did he talk about the habit of using the word "we" when preaching?

5 votes
1 answer
100 views

What is the meaning of Lord Vetinari's dungeon door in Terry Pratchett's "Guards! Guards!"?

4 votes
1 answer
115 views

What - if anything - was Artaud trying to achieve with his odd translation of Through the Looking Glass?

0 votes
1 answer
115 views

In The Scarlet Letter, did Hawthorne misuse the word prolixity?

2 votes
1 answer
131 views

Is "the Kozak in a stormy meadow" part of a traditional song?

1 vote
1 answer
146 views

Can plot development analysis (climax, denouement, etc.) apply to smaller segments throughout a work?

3 votes
1 answer
81 views

Meaning of Shell, Remove, and Hundreds in Alice Winn's In Memoriam (and other novels with public school settings)

2 votes
1 answer
101 views

Are the events in Thomas Bernhard’s “Correction” autobiographical?

0 votes
1 answer
74 views

What does Anthony Burgess mean about "the State is all that matters and no one has a right to hear Beethoven"?

2 votes
1 answer
73 views

Book about some teenagers building a robot

5 votes
0 answers
144 views

Reference to Novalis in Ghérasim Luca's poem "La Poésie Pratique"

3 votes
1 answer
62 views

Looking for a children's book from the 1950s about an anthropomorphized animal who's abandoned by his family

1 vote
1 answer
99 views

Meaning of “All spirits are enslaved that serve things evil” in "Prometheus Unbound"

0 votes
2 answers
58 views

What does "The Shampoo" written by Elizabeth Bishop tell?

2 votes
1 answer
85 views

What does this line from an essay on T. S. Eliot mean?

6 votes
1 answer
82 views

Why did blood build the House of Shaws in Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson?

0 votes
1 answer
95 views

Considering the similarities between H.G. Wells’ Kipps and Charles Dickens’ Pip can we draw a conclusion regarding parallels between the works?

6 votes
0 answers
93 views

Who or what is 'our God' in Swinburne's 'Ave atque Vale'?

5 votes
0 answers
85 views
+50

Account of picking up a black hitchhiker who then wanted to be let out

2 votes
0 answers
109 views

Story where a guy gets an email where if he agrees to go out and buy specific computers and store them in the attic then he'll get paid lots of money

1 vote
0 answers
90 views

Identify a short story where a husband purposely drives his wife crazy

3 votes
1 answer
53 views

Censorship reaction to Moravia's "La mascherata"

1 vote
0 answers
80 views

Catharsis in Medea

4 votes
0 answers
72 views

Children's Book, Characters Made of Vegetables

0 votes
1 answer
41 views

What do ellipses mean in the context of this Taras Shevchenko poem?

3 votes
1 answer
65 views

What happened to the gills of picked shrimps?

3 votes
0 answers
61 views

Casualty lists in school newspaper in Alice Winn's In Memoriam

-1 votes
0 answers
57 views

As a Chinese reader, how do I appreciate "the great gatsby"? [closed]

1 vote
0 answers
49 views

Why was a time of war described as "good"?

2 votes
0 answers
49 views

What differences are there between the editions of Grossman's translation of Don Quixote?

3 votes
0 answers
45 views

Are there standard guidelines on apostrophising to denote swallowed syllables for scansion?

2 votes
0 answers
41 views

Book about a boy that joins a traveling "snake-oil" show and eventually escapes, finds his father?

2 votes
1 answer
30 views

Goosebumps book about 2 kids in a haunted school


Looking for more? Browse the complete list of questions, or popular tags. Help us answer unanswered questions.