All Questions

In the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams, for the reader to infer the context of the poem - why so much depends on the red wheelbarrow, the reader has to know that William Carlos ...

In Chapter Four: This fact of itself would have made me diffident in my censures, had not a still stronger ground been furnished by the strange contrast of the heat and long continuance of the ...

From Chapter 4 of Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: I am indeed convinced in my own mind, that could the same experiment have been tried with these volumes, as was made in the well ...

In Act II of The Importance of Being Earnest, Gwendolen says this in a conversation with Cecily: Gwendolen: [...] And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully ...

In Act II of The Importance of Being Earnest, Cecily has this conversation with Algernon: Algernon: Ahem! Cecily! [Picking up hat.] Your Rector here is, I suppose, thoroughly experienced in the ...

I need help with a line by line thought by thought for the poem "We the Women" by Grace Nichols. We the women who cut clear fetch dig sing We the women making something from this ache-and-pain-...

I've always wondered if there is a connection between the film The House on Haunted Hill and Shirley Jackson's novel, The Haunting of Hill House? Both came out in 1959. Both have similar titles ...

From Chapter 4 of Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: At present it will be sufficient for my purpose, if I have proved, that Mr. Southey’s writings no more than my own furnished the ...

Does anyone know the name of or the author of the poem below? My grandfather used to say it all of the time and I would like to read it at his funeral. It's very silly and goes something like this: ...

I vaguely remember one book from my childhood, which I would be glad to have around. I do not recall much, but I think that it was written by (possibly) Slovenian author, or Slovak. Perhaps even Czech ...

I often hear the term "Lovecraftian" used in reference to describe certain elements of horror literature or film. I do understand this to be a reference to H.P. Lovecraft and his style of horror, but ...

I've heard that all of Solzhenitsyn's work is to be in English by the centennial of his birth, which is this year. I'm trying to understand just what new English translations we can expect this year, ...

The opening of Chapter 12 of The Count of Monte Cristo describes a meeting between Villefort and his father Noirtier, on which a servant apparently attempted to eavesdrop. The passage (translation ...

Here is the poem "Holy Thursday" from Songs of Experience by William Blake: Is this a holy thing to see, In a rich and fruitful land? Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and usurious hand. ...

The religious symbolism in C.S. Lewis's Narnia books is well known and, in many cases, very clear: Aslan is Jesus, the Calormenes are a very stereotypical portrayal of Muslims, the Dwarfs may ...

What does the author mean with "The dog gives but the cat is"? The part I don't understand is the cat part. It's from "Cats and Dogs" by H. P. Lovecraft. Altogether, we may see that the dog ...

From Chapter 13 in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria (italics added): I could add to these arguments one derived from pecuniary motives, and particularly from the probable effects on the sale of ...

In The Fellowship of the Ring, after Gandalf tells Frodo the story of the One Ring and challenges him to destroy it, Frodo looks at the ring and we read this description: how rich and beautiful was ...

I am trying to find a book that I probably read 15-25 yrs. ago. I have tried AbeBooks, Reddit, Goodreads and wrote to the New York Library (just did that today), Library of Congress (They acknowledged ...

I often find myself, On the last page, When I'm lost out & locked away of reality. In the adobe, freed i taste colors & breath peace. There's no line you see its just the ...

I recently read a piece of writing: "your touch left a sweet accord in my frown" Is this the right usage of the word accord? Am I missing something?

In 1606, the English Parliament passed the Act to Restrain Abuses of Players, and plays written after that date avoided using the names of God or Jesus "jestingly or profanely". The Wikipedia ...

In Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney, in which way does the story of the Coma Baby symbolises the life of the main character? Why has the author included it?

"Jane Roe" a common name for an anonymous or unknown individual (similar to "John Doe" for men) - notably, for example, in the case Roe v. Wade. That being said, why was Sally Beth Roe's last name "...

I've written a book. Several literary have told me it's quite good---but they won't take it on because it apparently isn't a Middle-Grade book, and more of a Young Adult or Adult book. This is bad, ...

I'm listening to "Lucifer's Hammer" and more than once book mentions hand signals based on Kipling's books. Something along the line of this: one person is manning a barricade, another man in a hide-...

About two years ago I read a short story about a Jack-in-the-box that is unused. I believe that he was at the bottom of the toy box and where he came from was unknown. In the house were a bunch of ...

Prior to his job on The Banner, Ellsworth Toohey spent awhile as a career advisor at a college. One of his distinctive traits as a career advisor was that he usually advised people against doing what ...

The stanger i need quotes and explenations pleace. why do he kill him?? what was his motive?

I'm doing a "reliability of the text" study and want to review the reliability of the texts that have been used to substantiate the Miyamoto Musashi texts The Book of the Five Rings and The Path of ...

I am looking for a book I read when I was young on the recommendation of my father. While I read the book in the mid 90's I believe that it was published in the 60's or 70's. It is about a teen who ...

Here is the poem "Spring" by Gerard Manley Hopkins: Nothing is so beautiful as Spring– When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush’s eggs look little low ...

In the book we learn that So I was wondering, couldn't they have come up with a better name for the book? Or was the whole theme of the title supposed to be a mystery?

(From Chapter 3..) Winston Smith is doing his morning gymnastics in front of the telescreen and thinking about the Party and their actions. Quoting from the book itself (emphasis mine): Sometimes, ...

In American Psycho, Patrick Bateman rents the same weird film tens or hundreds of times from the video store. For me, the funniest line in the book is where Bateman describes the look of horror on the ...

What do the following lines from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest say about Victorian investments and taxes? Lady Bracknell : What between the duties expected of one during one’s ...

According to the Wikipedia article about Dramatis Personae, Dramatis Personae began in plays and later moved into the other forms of literature. This led me to ask: When did Dramatis Personae first ...

As I was fighting through the first page of Chapter 7 of Beauty and Sadness (see Dramatis Personae of Beauty and Sadness), I stumbled upon a sentence that is hard to understand. Since I read it in ...

As established in the question, Do authors who translate their own works tend to do accurate translations?, authors who translate their work often emphasize different elements and they do not always ...

Beauty and Sadness (美しさと哀しみと Utsukushisa to kanashimi to) clearly isn't an easy read. I had started it some 5 years ago, read till the middle and abandonned it. Now, I picked it up again and found a ...

This question asks about the choice of a word and seems to be in the context of assessing the quality of translations. However, to make assessments of the form suggested by the question. One must have ...

When I was taking a few notes about Ashigaru, japanese foot soldiers of the jigoku-era, I found that most contemporary illustrations on this page stem from one and the same book by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. ...

The North Water by Ian McGuire is a modern novel in the tradition of historical realism, set in the high arctic. It is a violent, masculine novel with a clear debt to the work of Cormac McCarthy which ...

The book starts with Winston entering his apartment in noon, leaving work at noon by choice since we are given the information that By leaving the Ministry at this time of day he had sacrificed ...

Years ago I had a book in my fingers that was somewhat similar to the Art of War by Sun Tsu, but it was from Japan, and focussed in part on specific combat situations and what to do then. So maybe it ...

In Robert Hayden's poem "The Ballad of Nat Turner", the word "harshener" appears twice in reference to God/Jehovah: In scary night I wandered, praying, Lord God my harshener, speak to me ...

Chavittu nadakam is a Christian-origin dance form from Kerala, India. It's quite similar to the European opera, though chavittu nadakam involves a lot of dancing. The dance is accompanied by archaic ...

In "O Daedalus, Fly Away Home", Robert Hayden makes reference to flying back to Africa. In the second to last stanza, he says: My gran. he flew back to Africa, just spread his arms and flew ...

During his times the United States and Great Britain were seen as one of the few the greatest "true" democracies that have ever existed. Why did he decide to merge them into one totalitarian ...

At least the early albums in the Asterix series don't directly tell if the potion gives invincibility in addition to superhuman strength and speed. My impression has been that only Obelix is immortal ...