Questions tagged [history-of-literature]
Questions about historical development within literature: for example, the history of a particular literary theme or idea, or of literature in a particular country or context. For questions about real-world history as it relates to literature, use [historical-context] instead. For questions about publication dates of specific works or editions, use [textual-history].
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Has copy protection ever been used in physical books?
"Digital rights management", DRM, is almost a standard in the e-book industry. Have copyright holders ever tried to protect physical books from scanning, for example in a way how banknotes are ...
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Where did the idea of a "true name" come from?
There's a common trope in Western fantasy that, up until now, I've sort of taken for granted: the "true name."
This is the idea that all things have true names that are somehow more closely linked to ...
user80
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History of Spoilers
I live in the USA, where people react poorly if you spoil a move or a book for them. However, the question What is the benefit in the Prologue "spoiling" the play in Romeo + Juliet? raises ...
user111
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Since when has Shakespeare's "Scottish play" been considered unlucky?
In theatrical superstition, Shakespeare's play Macbeth is considered to be unlucky, to the extent that even saying its name more than necessary may bring bad luck: hence the tradition of actors ...
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Why are haiku usually of 17 syllables?
One of the characteristics of Haiku is that the poems are usually of 17 syllables (5-7-5). Exceptions exist, of course, but 17 is the norm.
Why 17? How did the originators of Haiku come to settle on ...
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Did Borges invent the idea of writing reviews/summaries of imaginary literary works?
In reading short stories by the great Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges, I've noticed a repeated theme: many of these stories are written in the style of a review or summary of a much larger and ...
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Was pretending to be an abridgement of a made-up work invented by William Goldman?
William Goldman's The Princess Bride is famous (among other reasons) for a literary device it employs - it pretends to be an abridgment (or "the good parts version") of a longer work by S. ...
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What is the earliest reference in fiction to a government-approved thieves guild?
I remember reading about the Thieves's guild in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, and I remember thinking they seemed... Novel? Especially as it was government-approved.
One of the remarkable ...
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How did the Inklings originate?
The (original) Inklings were a group of Oxford academics and writers, their most famous members including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Hugo Dyson. They used to meet regularly, ...
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Were English poets of the sixteenth century aware of the Great Vowel Shift?
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of English vowel sounds, marking the dividing line between Middle English and Modern English. A wholesale shift of sounds took place ...
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Was Paradise Lost the first major work of literature to give "sympathy for the devil"?
John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost was first published in England in 1667. While this is long after the Protestant Reformation where alternative ideas about Christianity became slightly more ...
user403
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How wide was the exploration of Japan's culture in American literature before 1905?
Prior to Russo-Japanese war and Teddy Roosevelt's efforts to end it, I don't recall USA being overly involved with Japan.
As such, was that reflective in American literature?
How wide/common was the ...
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When did men dressed as women stop being the norm in English theatre?
This excellent answer by Joshua Engel draws a comparison between men dressed as women in Shakespeare-era plays and perspective jumps in modern cinema:
The audience would, of course, have been aware ...
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What fictional series has the longest release to completion?
I am being inspired by George R.R. Martin and his A Song of Ice and Fire series which is currently at 24 years (A Game of Thrones was released in 1996) since the publication of the first work in the ...
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Does the Epic of Gilgamesh have a continuous cultural history?
Over 4000 years ago, the Epic of Gilgamesh was first told and written down on clay tablets.
Today, as far as I understand, the story is known from the discovery of those tablets in recent centuries.
...
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How did contemporary readers respond to coincidence in 19th century novels?
Reading 19th century literature in the 21st century, it is often striking how often the plot turns on often quite outrageous coincidences. Frequently this happens when a relatively small cast of ...
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Who first referred to Odysseus as Ulysses?
When I was in high school, Homer's Iliad, Homer's Odyssey, and Virgil's Aeneid were taught as a trilogy of sorts.
Was Virgil the first Roman to refer to Odysseus as 'Ulysses' or was there another (...
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Dickens invented the scary clown?
Today in "Messages from Firefox" (some annoying thing that comes up in my browser), I saw the following which piqued my interest:
Dickens invented the scary clown, the ‘80s perfected it. ...
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Is it a common motif in (western) storytelling that the antagonists are located to the east?
I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this question. I was reading some Lord of the Rings-lore the other day and it got me thinking about the location of "evil" in storytelling. In ...
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What is the origin of the trope of an evil character whose name is not permitted to be spoken?
Many works of fantasy involve an evil leader or "dark lord" whose real name is known but usually not permitted to be spoken, either by his own followers (out of respect?) or by others (out of fear?) ...
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Why did iambic pentameter become so 'standard' in classical English poetry?
Iambic pentameter is probably the most prevailing and widely used meter in classical English poetry, and it's the 'standard' form of verse in many forms of poetry such as sonnets. From Wikipedia (...
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What was the first book that explicitly used "A Hero's Journey" as a checklist?
Obviously, many stories told fit "A Hero's Journey" - that's the whole point of it.
George Lucas was famous for explicitly making the Star Wars story based on Campbell's checklist and acknowledging ...
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Would "most unkindest" have been considered poor grammar in Shakespeare's time?
One of the famous lines from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, describing Brutus's stab to Caesar, is:
This was the most unkindest cut of all
Nowadays, it would be considered incorrect grammar to combine ...
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What happened to the epic poem?
It's so strange to me that we all praised and adore things, but would never consider supporting them in a modern setting. There are many examples of this: poetry (very unpopular nowadays; not in the ...
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How and why did the story of King Cnut change?
The 11th-century king Cnut/Knut/Canute of Denmark, Norway, and England is today best known for the story of how he sat on the beach commanding the waves to turn back. The original account of this ...
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What is the origin of epigraphs?
What are the origins of putting epigraphs in a work?
Wikipedia has this example from 1700, but no explanation on when or why epigraphs came into vogue.
Facsimile of the original title page for ...
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What is an epic and why is there “only one epic in English Language so far”?
I’m quite familiar with novels and stories, if my personal view is concerned I would say that story is just a compact and summarised form of novel. The level of detail in novels is, obviously, much ...
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What is the earliest hybrid graphic novel?
Malice (2009) was the first hybrid graphic novel I read, though I've seen more than one other since.
By "hybrid graphic novel," I mean a book that contains passages of both traditional, unillustrated ...
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Has a parody of a work of literature ever become more successful than the original work?
I was thinking of this when I read Nineteen-Neighty-Four, a fanfic with My Little Pony ponies in a 1984-ish world.
Parodies can be really successful as a way of challenging another work, or the ideas ...
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What classic mystery novels and stories led to "the butler did it" becoming a cliché?
"The butler did it" is a common trope indicating a hackneyed solution to a mystery. I have read several classic mysteries from the 1920s and earlier (Poe, Conan Doyle, Christie, Sayers, etc.)...
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Origin of symbolic interpretation of Prospero's breaking of his staff?
At the end of The Tempest, which is generally believed to be the last plays that Shakesepare wrote alone, Prospero breaks his staff and drowns his book. This has often been read as Shakespeare telling ...
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Why was/is James Joyce's writing revolutionary for its time?
I love his writing, but I don't know why he is considered one of the great fiction writers in English. Why was James Joyce's writing so "revolutionary" for its time? I know that at one time ...
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What evidence is there for the "recession of accent" theory?
In the late 19th and early 20th century, there was a theory that certain oddities in the rhythms of Shakespeare and other early modern English poets could best be explained by recession of accent.
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Why are Dwarfs almost always technologically advanced compared to other races?
In almost every fantasy world Dwarfs are almost always shown to have superior technology compared to other races. Why is that?
LuisLord of the canadian realm
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Why are there so many references to Moneylenders and Jews in 19th century fiction?
In 19th century fiction, there are a lot of references to moneylenders as "Jews". For example, in "Framley Parsonage", by Anthony Trollope, Lord Lufton says "the pocket-books of the Jews are stuffed ...
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How does a book become "an American classic"?
It seems that, in passing, some books are referred to as "an American classic," or "one of the great American classics." This seems like it's a whole subsection of what counts as "classic literature."
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user80
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Would the chorus leader typically speak/sing along with the chorus in classical Greek plays?
I had assumed that the chorus leader would speak along with the chorus. He is a part of it, after all. However, when I asked my literature professor on a whim he wasn't completely sure. Doing my own ...
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How has knowledge of the Ur-Hamlet evolved over the centuries?
I recently read in an excellent verbose answer that the existence of the Ur-Hamlet, on which Shakespeare's Hamlet is presumed to have been based, is known from a throwaway line of Thomas Lodge, ...
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What qualifies something as "Lovecraftian"?
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 ...
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Why did attitudes change towards tragedy?
Views on whether or not tragedy provides a fulfilling end to a work have changed over the centuries and it has slipped in and out of popularity in contemporary works of a given period. Great literary ...
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What's the earliest fictional work of literature that contains an allusion to an earlier fictional work of literature?
I need to define my terms quite carefully for this question. So the Mirriam-Webster definition of allusion is:
an implied or indirect reference especially in literature
i.e. a poem that makes ...
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Literary background of being poisoned via the ear?
Shakespeare's Hamlet famously features a character being killed by having poison poured into his ear. This unusual method of murder has been much referenced in other works since Shakespeare, but where ...
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Earliest second-person novel
What is the earliest novel that makes use of second-person narration through the entire book, excluding choose-your-own-adventure books?
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What is the difference between a philosophical novel and a novel of ideas?
Wikipedia calls the novel of ideas a subgenre of philosophical fiction, without defining the first term. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (2010) uses the terms "novel of ideas" and "...
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When was the Holy Grail first depicted as an object to be owned by its seeker?
While the Holy Grail was always depicted as an important or powerful relic, in medieval literature I have never seen a quest to own the Grail, only to seek it in a spiritual sense. In early stories, ...
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Is there actually such a thing as "OCR-pirated" books?
A recent answer/comment to a different question prompted me to ask this: Why does Tolkien use neither quotes nor cursive writing, and all lower-case, in this specific "quote"?
Somebody seems ...
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Since when did Merlin have an owl?
I was reading some ten-year-old comments on a Q&A about owls in Harry Potter and learned that some versions of the Arthurian legend have the wizard Merlin possessing an owl which is called ...
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Are there earlier incidences than Merchant of Venice of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other?
In act 2, scene 2 of The Merchant of Venice, Launcelot Gobbo is conflicted regarding whether to run from Shylock, or continue working for him. Shakespeare expresses this internal conflict by ...
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Was J.R.R. Tolkien building on a past tradition when relying heavily on languages he made up?
It is a uncontested and well known fact that Tolkien was a linguist, and he wrote Middle-Earth as a setting for his languages.
However, what interests me is whether the approach he took was out of ...
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Earliest work of fiction in which characters using telepathy can't lie
In Liu Cixin's novel The Three-Body Problem (2006/2008),
the inhabitants of the planet Trisolaris communicate with each other using telepathy and are unable to lie. In Ursula Le Guin's novel The Left ...
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