All Questions

As a child I remember enjoying the Babar picture books about the eponymous elephant and his escapades. Now, many years later, it occurs to me to wonder what kind of elephants Babar and his people were:...

In which ages was materialism used by poets? Give examples

I was asked a question by my professor while presenting my paper the paper referenced a poem "The Sparrow's Nest" where "Sparrow's dwelling" and "bright blue eggs were used. ...

My question is about Byron's The Giaour and the opening apostrophe at the beginning of a stanza. For example: 'His floating robe around him folding, Slow sweeps he through the columned aisle; With ...

In Hamlet [III, 1], Hamlet tells Ophelia (lines 1814,27,34): Get thee to a nunnery! […] Go thy ways to a nunnery. […] Get thee to a nunnery. […] To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. […] To a nunnery, ...

I'm learning about the different hero archetypes. As far as I know, Byronic heroes are charismatic, passionate, and flawed, among others. But can they be humorous? I can't think of any examples off of ...

I was wondering if there might be some articles or books about the use of camp aesthetics in LGBTQ+ poetry (either thematically or written by queer authors). I don't think campiness is at all foreign ...

I'm trying to explain how she overcame adversities in her life. I think that, although food was scarce at Lowood, she benefits from eating porridge. First, because porridge (boiled oats) has many ...

According to the Redwall wiki page on moles, The mole dialect is derived from the region of Somerset, England. Brian Jacques frequently tales the story of how when he was a truck driver, he drove ...

What does Speed-the-Plow mean in David Mamet's play? I know that it is a traditional song that farmers sang to ask God to bless their crops. But I can't figure out the relationship between the meaning ...

I recently read Katherine Anne Porter's "He", and, after reading it twice, am still left in the dark about one thing. It is said that "Rolls of fat covered Him like an overcoat", ...

The following is an excerpt of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's novel The life of a fool: He read a book by Anatole France, his head propped up by a pillow of skepticism exuding a rosy fragrance; the presence ...

From The Comedy of Errors, Act III Scene II: DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her. ANTIPHOLUS OF ...

The online description of Rüdiger Safranski's book Wieviel Wahrheit braucht der Mensch? begins with the following sentence: In einem berühmten chinesischen Märchen verschwindet der Maler in seinem ...

I'm trying to find a comic strip that originally appeared in Mad and was reprinted in a paperback collection of material from that magazine. I read it in the paperback collection. The strip shows a ...

Mariem Mint Derwich's poem "You Will Tell Them", available in English translation from Words Without Borders, appears to be about a Mauritanian woman, perhaps "the" woman of ...

In Chapter One of King Solomon's Mines we have the first reference to one of the main antagonists of the story: Stop, though! there is Gagaoola, if she was a woman, and not a fiend. Throughout the ...

Recently, The New Yorker came out with Thomas Mcguane's short story "Balloons". It is a short piece of fiction, really. However, it wasn't clear to me what the author intended to convey ...

In The Markenmore Mystery (1922) by J. S. Fletcher, the author was describing someone: He was a very meek and mild young man, thought Blick, as far as appearance went; an intellectual of some sort, ...

I'm trying to understand Roethke's "The Waking", and one of my problems is that I'm not sure who "you" is. Most of the poem uses "I" or "my", etc.. There are a ...

It's been a long time, so my memory of the details is fuzzy. But I remember reading a book in which unicorns were the main characters; this is not a book about humans befriending unicorns in our world,...

In Chapter 21 of Catcher in the Rye, Phoebe tells Holden about a movie she saw at the "Lister Foundation". No other mention of the Foundation appears in the text. Was it a real organization ...

This passage is from The Children's Bach by Helen Garner Elizabeth used the presence of Vicki at her place as an excuse for sleeping nearly every night at Philip’s. He did not mind: he was not the ...

I'm reading Hearts of Three written by Jack London. Right in Chapter I, I found the following sentence: If ever a man leaped across time into the raw, red drama and tragedy of the primitive and the ...

Wikipedia says: Among the principal works and stories in the Mahābhārata are the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Damayanti, the story of Savitri and Satyavan, the story of Kacha and Devyani, the story of ...

This passage is from The Children's Bach by Helen Garner Spring came. In the mornings, when the first person opened the back door, the whole bulk of air in the house shifted and warmed. Women sighed ...

From Re Judicial by Baticuling (Jesús Balmori) in El libro de mis vidas manileñas (1928) Before the first stanza, the author begins with a little message: "Antonio Manipula, juez ... y ...

Edna St. Vincent Millay's very short poem "Figs from Thistles: First Fig" goes as follows: My candle burns at both ends;    It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—  ...

In Chapter Five of King Solomon's Mines the narrator, Allan Quatermain, acts as a translator during a conversation between Sir Henry and Umbopa: Sir Henry nodded. "I was sure of it," he ...

In Chapter 24 of Little Dorrit, in one of the last scenes, Mr Merdle asks for a penknife. When Mrs Sparkler hands him the knife he asks if he could have one with a "darker" handle. ‘So I am ...

In the beginning of Chapter Four of King Solomon's Mines we are given the distance travelled: Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of our long travel up to Sitanda's Kraal,...

In "The Red Wheelbarrow" the poet William Carlos Williams uses enjambment to great effect (or so I have read): so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the ...

I'm an avid reader of cozy detective fiction (C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown, &c.) and noticed naturally that certain categories exist (or that's the notion I have) even within ...

I read this novel somewhere around 2010 (2006-2016, can't be much more precise than that). It was in English, probably an American writer. It might have been the first in a series, probably for young ...

From Act I Scene II of the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare: BRUTUS I would not, Cassius, yet I love him well. But wherefore do you hold me here so long? What is it that you would impart to ...

Doctor Marigold is the titular "cheap-jack" in Dickens' Doctor Marigold. Is "Marigold" his real name, with "Doctor" an addition, or is "Doctor Marigold" a ...

I am under the impression Mishani doesn't write in English. Wikipedia: Haish sheratza ladaat hakol (2015; To be published in English during 2016: The Man who wanted to know) This source claims: Two ...

Mem and Zin is a classic tale of traditional Kurdish storytelling, passed down through oral tradition for centuries, but also written down in 1692 by the Kurdish poet Ahmad Khani. In the process of ...

This passage is from The Children's Bach by Helen Garner She stood at the tramstop opposite the long railed side of the cemetery. Someone had written in black texta on the lamp-post DARREN WAR LOURD. ...

I was looking back at Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and I wondering the following: How did James Halliday die? Was it related to his creations?

I read a book a while back (probably just before 2010) that I'm trying to find again. It's set in a somewhat surreal library, and I recall that the story line was very strongly based on Jaws, with ...

I'm reading online Salah Saadalla's translation of the Kurdish classic Mem and Zin, and I've reached the part where the eponymous lovers, along with their respective siblings, meet each other at ...

The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel is a series of novels by François Rabelais, originally published in the 16th century. The Wikipedia article notes this about illustrations: The most famous and ...

I'm looking for a Swedish literary novel, published 2013, set in the Pårtetjåkko observatory in the Sarek mountains in Sweden. In the book, the (fictional) main character is alone in the remote ...

I'm trying to understand the use of literary devices, and in particular the literary conventions related to metonymy, metaphor and similar figures of speech. For example, in the following sentence, ...

This passage is from The Children's Bach by Helen Garner In the huge room beyond the partition the phone rang and she heard Elizabeth pick it up. Before the caller had a chance to speak, Elizabeth ...

Cornelius Fudge was last seen after resigning at Albus Dumbledore's funeral. What happens to him after that?

In Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name, while Elio describes the events of the summer, he refers to a quote by Francesca he remembers from Inferno. "Love, which exempts no one who's loved from ...

In The Markenmore Mystery (1922) by J. S. Fletcher, Mr. Fransemmery, a juryman, went to Mrs. Braxfield, a rural witness, while Mr. Blick, a detective, was in her house: Mrs. Braxfield herself opened ...

The classical Kurdish story of Mem and Zin (which I'm reading online in Salah Saadalla's translation) appears to be set in a principality called Botan, whose prince (Zin's brother) rules from the town ...