All Questions
6,566
questions
3
votes
2
answers
233
views
Meaning of "Rustum" in Trollope's "Orley Farm"
Trollope in Orley Farm refers to "the wisest Rustums of the law." Who was the original Rustum?
He had left that congress, though the wisest Rustums of the law from all the civilized ...
- 283
2
votes
1
answer
61
views
Seeking Title of WWII Movie Featuring a Resistance Group and a Unique Method to Expose an Informant [closed]
I'm trying to recall the name of an old black-and-white WWII movie centered around a resistance group (possibly French or Polish) opposing Nazi occupation. In a pivotal scene, the group intercepts a ...
- 155
0
votes
0
answers
13
views
Was the feeling of attraction towards a lower social class present in Moravia's "Agostino" discussed by critics?
Alberto Moravia's Agostino is clearly a Bildungsroman: the events that happened to the thirteen-year-old ingenuous protagonist during the summer of 1942 mark his entry into adolescence. But some other ...
- 2,064
2
votes
0
answers
29
views
What's the significance of this sentence in the tale "Ladri in chiesa" by Alberto Moravia?
The tale Ladri in chiesa (Thefts in church) belongs to the book Racconti romani (Roman tales) by Alberto Moravia. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any translation to English of this short ...
- 2,064
1
vote
0
answers
44
views
What is this "flashforward" technique called?
I was reading The Elusive Samurai, a manga by Yusei Matsui, which is set in the XIV century in Japan. The author uses some kind of special "flashforward" in which the characters, mostly ...
- 11
1
vote
0
answers
43
views
How can corruption be shown in the creation of middle class?
In Tomorrow's People, by Paul Morland, the author discusses the inequality of infant mortality within nations:
The worst countries have made the fastest progress, so the gap is closing at the ...
- 4,103
2
votes
1
answer
65
views
Significance of "further up and further in"?
In C.S. Lewis's Narnia grand finale, The Last Battle, one chapter is entitled "Further Up and Further In", and this phrase is repeated a great many times by various characters:
"Then [...
- 71.1k
2
votes
1
answer
112
views
What happened to the gills of picked shrimps?
Agatha Christie's detective Jane Marple made her first appearance in a sequence of six short stories published in The Royal Magazine between 1927 and 1928. The stories' success led Christie to write a ...
- 22.1k
1
vote
2
answers
93
views
What does "The Shampoo" written by Elizabeth Bishop tell?
The still explosions on the rocks,
the lichens, grow
by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged
to meet the rings around the moon, although
within our memories they have not changed.
...
- 11
-1
votes
0
answers
77
views
As a Chinese reader, how do I appreciate "the great gatsby"? [closed]
As a Chinese reader, I didn't find "The Great Gatsby" particularly striking. I know the era in which the novel is set—the Roaring Twenties in the United States and I can see Gatsby's tragic ...
- 117
14
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Meaning of "furnished with a pipe and a supply of cold without" in Trollope's "Orley Farm"
In Trollope's Orley Farm we are told that Mr. Moulder was "furnished with a pipe and a supply of cold without." What does this mean? It appears a little later that Moulder also has a glass ...
- 283
2
votes
1
answer
36
views
Goosebumps book about 2 kids in a haunted school
I remember reading a book, quite a long time ago, about a guy who is sent to a haunted school, where all the children are ghosts, except for a single girl, who is human like him, and she help in ...
- 21
2
votes
0
answers
37
views
Children's book about a Pig that buys a duck from the market to eat, takes the Duck home and they eat peas together
This would have been in circulation in Australia in the 1980's, possibly a book club / scholastic book. A pig goes to the market to buy a duck to eat for dinner, takes the duck home and they both eat ...
- 21
5
votes
1
answer
108
views
What is the meaning of Lord Vetinari's dungeon door in Terry Pratchett's "Guards! Guards!"?
The following passage is taken from the section of the book where Captain Vimes gets thrown into the dungeon, where he realizes that the Patrician is also being held captive:
It was a perfectly ...
- 153
1
vote
0
answers
86
views
Catharsis in Medea
Catharsis is defined by Aristotle as a pure release of supressed emotions. It generally occurs at the end of the play or at the resolution, when the audience undergoes a powerful experience of a range ...
- 11
1
vote
1
answer
107
views
Meaning of “All spirits are enslaved that serve things evil” in "Prometheus Unbound"
The line “all spirits are enslaved that serve things evil” can be found in the play Prometheus Unbound by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
My initial interpretation is, spirits that serve evil are enslaved by ...
- 121
2
votes
1
answer
123
views
Legend about the Invention of Steel
I am trying to track down a legend concerning the invention of steel (originally told to me by a group of touring historians visiting my Australian high school 40 years ago).
Under the legend, a ...
- 121
1
vote
0
answers
92
views
Identify a short story where a husband purposely drives his wife crazy
When I was in college I read a short story for a class and I'd like to find it again. I'm recalling this from my bad memory, so there could be many errors here..
The general plot was that a husband ...
- 111
4
votes
2
answers
45
views
What did Walt Whitman mean by "a pennant universal"?
(Edit: This was closed because it was marked as "opinion based" and I was asked to edit the question so that it could be answered by facts and citations.
@Fumblefingers gave citations, ...
- 141
4
votes
1
answer
119
views
What - if anything - was Artaud trying to achieve with his odd translation of Through the Looking Glass?
Antonin Artaud was a French theatre practitioner who is sometimes associated with the surrealists. Among his ideas was a desire to get "beyond" the limitations of language and to a freer ...
- 21k
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"
I think of my mother, sweeping up deadly toxins; the way they used to use up old women, in Russia, sweeping dirt. Only this dirt will kill her.
What does this mean?
- 93
4
votes
0
answers
104
views
Children's Book, Characters Made of Vegetables
My sister and I had a book when we were children (late 1980s, early 1990s at a push). The artwork was quite grown up and quite creepy for a children's book. The characters were made up of a variety of ...
4
votes
1
answer
162
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!"
(From The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, Chapter XVIII, published 1892)
Passage 286
“Even so, Jim. My questions,” I repeated. “I put questions as well as yourself; and however ...
- 183
2
votes
1
answer
571
views
Is this an editing error in this part of 1985 by Anthony Burgess?
-(Interviewer)You’re under arrest.
-(Burgess) I beg your pardon?
-You’re under arrest.
-You’re joking. Yes, joking. I knew somehow you were joking.
-But for a moment you thought I was serious.
-Yes, I ...
- 131
0
votes
1
answer
76
views
What does Anthony Burgess mean about "the State is all that matters and no one has a right to hear Beethoven"?
That’s what I believe in – mind, free mind, trying to understand itself as well as the world without, and to hell with the little men who try to stop free enquiry and the State is all that matters and ...
- 131
5
votes
0
answers
87
views
Account of picking up a black hitchhiker who then wanted to be let out
I remember decades ago reading a book with the following vignette, set in the 60s. The white male narrator is driving through the countryside and picks up a hitchhiking young black man. The rider is ...
- 255
2
votes
1
answer
73
views
Book about some teenagers building a robot
I’m looking for a young adult book I read around the mid 2000s. I was living in Bahrain at the time, but the book was in English and I think it was bought in England (Manchester). I think the book had ...
- 21
2
votes
0
answers
43
views
Book about a boy that joins a traveling "snake-oil" show and eventually escapes, finds his father?
I used to have this book about 20-ish years ago.
Setting for the story is some time around the gold rush
Boy runs away from home (possibly an orphanage?), a man on a traveling wagon offers to hide ...
- 121
4
votes
1
answer
96
views
In which C.S. Lewis essay or book chapter did he talk about the habit of using the word "we" when preaching?
I remember C.S. Lewis writing somewhere about how some preachers like to use the word "we" when pointing out a problematic behavior. For example, consider the statement "We secretly ...
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'
E. Nesbit, in The Book of Dragons, toward the end of the chapter titled 'The Island of the Nine Whirlpools', wrote:
The nine rubies were used afterwards in agriculture. You had only to
throw them out ...
- 355
5
votes
0
answers
145
views
Reference to Novalis in Ghérasim Luca's poem "La Poésie Pratique"
Ghérasim Luca's poem "La Poésie Pratique" / "Practical Poetry" contains the following lines:
En pratiquant le bouche à bouche de mot à mot
de « feu » le mort à « feu » vif
d' « ...
3
votes
1
answer
63
views
Looking for a children's book from the 1950s about an anthropomorphized animal who's abandoned by his family
I am looking for a children's picture book that I read in the late 1950s about an animal (don't remember what kind of animal, possibly a mouse or hamster) who was a member of a large family. He came ...
- 31
3
votes
0
answers
46
views
Are there standard guidelines on apostrophising to denote swallowed syllables for scansion?
There are various words in English which can be pronounced in different ways with different numbers of syllables. Poetry often requires them to be read in a particular way for appropriate scansion, ...
- 71.1k
2
votes
1
answer
85
views
What does this line from an essay on T. S. Eliot mean?
The following extract is from Charles Altieri's essay "Eliot's Impact on twentieth-century Anglo-American poetry" published in The Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot. Here, Altieri is ...
- 782
12
votes
3
answers
7k
views
Is there a name for the literary device in the expression "Thanks, I hate it."?
"Thanks, I hate it!" is an expression one could use to passive-aggressively indicate a strong dislike for something. What kind of literary device is used in this saying? Can this be ...
- 139
1
vote
1
answer
150
views
Can plot development analysis (climax, denouement, etc.) apply to smaller segments throughout a work?
I am in a class where we are being taught to analyze the smaller consecutive units of text which make up chapters in the overall work (which is of a biographical-historical narrative genre), where we ...
2
votes
0
answers
53
views
What differences are there between the editions of Grossman's translation of Don Quixote?
Putting aside the physical (like the cover, flaps etc.), what, if any, differences are there between these three editions of Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote? Are the annotations the same ...
3
votes
1
answer
54
views
Censorship reaction to Moravia's "La mascherata"
La mascherata is a novel by Alberto Moravia, published in 1941, during Italian fascist era. It is set in an imaginary dictatorship in Latin America. It is clearly a book against dictatorship. This ...
- 2,064
3
votes
0
answers
62
views
Casualty lists in school newspaper in Alice Winn's In Memoriam
Alice Winn's In Memoriam (2023) is set in part at Preshute, a fictional public school, around the time of World War I. The school newspaper carries a roll of honour that lists the names of deceased, ...
- 22.1k
3
votes
1
answer
88
views
Meaning of Shell, Remove, and Hundreds in Alice Winn's In Memoriam (and other novels with public school settings)
Alice Winn's In Memoriam (2023) is partly set in an English public school around the outbreak of World War I. Toward the beginning of the novel, the narrator states:
Preshute was a younger public ...
- 22.1k
0
votes
1
answer
116
views
In The Scarlet Letter, did Hawthorne misuse the word prolixity?
The passage is beautiful, but I simply can't make sense of the descriptor "unpicturesque prolixity" where he writes
Soon, likewise, my old native town .. with only imaginary inhabitants to ...
6
votes
1
answer
86
views
Why did blood build the House of Shaws in Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson?
Does anyone know why allegedly blood built the House of Shaws?
My dim memories of watching Kidnapped (1960) and reading the novel long ago include someone warning David Balfour that the House of Shaws ...
- 419
4
votes
2
answers
682
views
Meaning of "My owners'll have to rank with the rest on their charter-party"?
(From The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, Chapter XVI, published 1892)
Passage 256
“All the same,” continued Nares, “you went into the opium-smuggling with your head down; and a ...
- 183
2
votes
0
answers
110
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
I was talking with someone today and it reminded me of a story I read over 20 years ago. I can't remember if it was stand-alone or a short story. I know I read the book before the year 2000, so ...
- 121
1
vote
0
answers
21
views
What early copy of Kobzar was discovered in 2003?
The translator notes for the Taras Shevchenko poem Tribute to Shternberg in The Complete Kobzar mentioned that the authorship of the poem was in dispute until the 2003 discovery of a "rare early ...
4
votes
1
answer
254
views
Greek Alexander Romance - Plot device or other function of Alexander's surreptitious stealing of Persian drinking cups?
In one of the more common form factors of the Greek Alexander Romance (by Pseudo-Callisthenes), we have this passage, located in Book II, 15:
As they began to drink more deeply, Alexander had an idea:...
- 455
0
votes
0
answers
34
views
Manga about a character who gets lost in the woods, wanders around and finds this small shack with a young male hermit
I remember reading a few chapters of a Japanese manga about 3 years ago, but my memory of it is very hazy. The story was not current and had been in production for several years already. If I had to ...
- 11
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?
Considering the example H.G. Wells’ Kipps and Charles Dickens’ Pip there are obvious parallels between these characters and their respective stories. (For example, both are orphans brought up by ...
- 1,004
1
vote
0
answers
50
views
Why was a time of war described as "good"?
The poem Ivan Pidkova by Taras Shevchenko (in The Complete Kobzar) contains the following lines:
There was an age - that trouble
Pranced about Ukraine,
Grief quaffed honeymead
Like rebels in a tavern....
2
votes
1
answer
102
views
Are the events in Thomas Bernhard’s “Correction” autobiographical?
Someone told me today that in “Correction” when Rothaimer “pursue[s] his project of constructing an extraordinary habitation, the Cone” (Wikipedia), that this is based on actual events in Bernhard’s ...
- 123