Questions tagged [cultural-context]
Questions about the relation between works of literature and a specific cultural context. Cultural context does not necessarily refer to the context in which the work originated; it can also refer to the reception in a different cultural context.
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questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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Is Daisy's Gorilla game based on a real game?
In Part Two of R. K. Narayan's novel The Painter of Signs, Raman and Daisy visit a remote village, after which they return to Malgudi. Due to unforeseen circumstances, they need to spend a night on ...
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0answers
238 views
Before reading “A Grain of Wheat,” what historical facts and cultural context are useful to know?
I'm looking to read A Grain of Wheat, by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. However, I'm very unfamiliar with the history and culture of Kenya, to the point where I know practically nothing about it.
But I do know ...
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1answer
81 views
What is “the seventh sphere”?
In the second part (Helen Zimmern's translation) of the Shahnameh, the youngest son Irij is killed by his brothers, who send his head back to their father Feridoun:
Now when they were come to the ...
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0answers
21 views
Julia Wong Kcomt, “The Red Rooster”
The Chinese-Peruvian poet Julia Wong Kcomt wrote two poems for Words Without Borders about her experiences as a product of two different cultures. I'm particularly interested in the first of them, ...
2
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0answers
12 views
Did Maupassant adapt the style and content of his stories to the newspapers that published them?
Guy de Maupassant published his short stories and novellas in newspapers and periodicals such as Le Figaro, Gil Blas, Le Gaulois and L'Écho de Paris before they were published in book form. Le Figaro ...
2
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0answers
133 views
Origin of Dry Bone in Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber
Nalo Hopkinson's novel Midnight Robber contains a story entitled "Tan-Tan and Dry Bone". It is one of the many elements from Caribbean culture that Hopkinson draws on in the novel. Hopkinson's novel ...
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0answers
27 views
What is the significance of 36 in the Vietnamese poem “Learning Late Letters”?
"Learning Late Letters", a poem originally written in Vietnamese by Nguyễn Hoàng Quyên, was one of the winners of the 2020 Words Without Borders Academy of Americans Poets Poems in ...
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0answers
43 views
Relevance of the cloud chariot story to the rest of Midnight Robber?
Nalo Hopkinson's novel Midnight Robber contains a story entitled "How Tan-Tan Learn to Thief". It is one of the many elements from Caribbean culture that Hopkinson draws on in the novel.
The story is ...
