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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When was any of Fontane's work first included in literary anthologies for use in schools?
Theodor Fontane is now regarded as the most important German-language novelist of the second half of the nineteenth century. His work is now often required reading (German: "Pflichtlektüre") ...
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How long has The Knight in the Panther's Skin been considered a Georgian national epic?
Shota Rustaveli (c. 1160 – after c. 1220) was the author of "The Knight in the Panther's Skin, which is considered to be a Georgian national epic poem." The Wikipedia article about The ...
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Until what year was Machiavelli's The Prince banned in England?
Machiavelli's treatise The Prince, written in the early 16th century and first published in 1532, was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1559. According to Robert Bireley, quoted on Wikipedia,
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How long has Pan Tadeusz been compulsory reading in Polish schools?
Pan Tadeusz or Master Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse is an epic poem by the Polish author Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), ...
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What was the first picaresque novel in Italian literature?
The first picaresque novel in European literature was the Spanish novel Lazarillo de Tormes, which was first published in 1554. The section on the sources of Lazarillo de Tormes in the Wikipedia on ...
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How long has Kalevipoeg been considered the Estonian national epic?
According to Wikipedia, Kalevipoeg is "an epic poem by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald held to be the Estonian national epic". Kreutzwald based his epic on existing oral stories that had been ...
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Who coined the term "omniscient narrator"?
In narrative theory,
A third person omniscient narrator conveys information from multiple characters, places, and events of the story, including any given characters' thoughts, and a third person ...
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How long has El Cantar de mio Cid been considered a national epic of Spain?
El Cantar de mio Cid or The Poem of the Cid is not only "the oldest preserved Castilian epic poem" but also "considered a national epic of Spain". The text may date from the 12th ...
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How long has Daredevils of Sassoun been considered a national epic of the Armenians?
Daredevils of Sassoun (or Sasna Dzrer or Sasna cṙer) is an Armenian heroic epic that "is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Armenian folklore". Its main character is David ...
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What was the first picaresque novel in Russian literature?
Lazarillo de Tormes, published simultaneously in Alcalá de Henares, Burgos and Antwerp in 1554, is generally considered the first picaresque novel. The Wikipedia article about the picaresque novel ...
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How long has the Ramakien been considered one of Thailand's national epics?
The Ramakien is a Thai version of the Ramayana. The earliest stages of the Ramayana seem to date from the 7th to 4th centuries BCE, and many other cultures that were influenced by India developed ...
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Has any opera ever made a successful transition to the theatre stage?
Some operas are based on plays. For example, Shakespeare's Othello was the source for Rossini's Otello (1816)
and Verdi's Otello (1887). Romeo and Juliet inspired Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette (1839) ...
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In what way is Jorge Amado's The Violent Land a modernist novel?
The Wikipedia article about Jorge Amado's The Violent Land / Terras do Sem Fim describes this work as "a Brazilian Modernist novel". The corresponding Portuguese, French and Italian ...
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In what way is Jorge Amado's Home Is the Sailor a modernist novel?
The Wikipedia article about Jorge Amado's Home Is the Sailor / Os velhos marinheiros ou o capitão de longo curso describes this work as a "Brazilian modernist novel". The corresponding ...
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In what way is Jorge Amado's The Discovery of America by the Turks a modernist novel?
The Wikipedia article about Jorge Amado's The Discovery of America by the Turks / A Descoberta da América pelos Turcos describes this work as "a Brazilian Modernist novel", even though it ...
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In what way is Jorge Amado's novel Jubiabá a modernist novel?
The Wikipedia article about Jorge Amado describes the author as "a Brazilian writer of the modernist school" and adds that he was "one of the founders of the Modernist 'Rebels' Academy&...
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Democratizing original occult texts
Search engine results for occult libraries tend to have mostly commercial interests at play (vendors of trinkets and spell books and the like). Another issue I've run into is the genre tends to get ...
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What was the first instance of the use of a Closed Time loop as a plot device in a published piece of American science fiction?
What was the first instance of the use of a closed time loop (An event where the cause and effect of a time loop feed into one another, creating a stable and unending chain of causality), in a piece ...
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Social class in medieval Italian literature and its changes during the Renaissance
I'm very interested in how notions of class were reflected in medieval Italian literature and how these archetypes, tropes, motifs or whatever you'd like to call them changed during the Renaissance ...
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What was the first Belarusian novel?
While reading the Wikipedia article about Belarusian literature and the articles about individual authors who were active before World War II, it struck me that most authors were poets, with some of ...
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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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Standard text for "Tristan and Isolde"
What is the standard narrative text to read "Tristan and Isolde"? That is, is there something that is a classical text, not in poem form, something like Le Morte d'Arthur for King Arthur?
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What was the first work of fiction about flying machines?
There are two stories by Jules Verne which I know about which captured the public imagination about Flying Machines in the 18th century. The first is the somewhat unknown A Trip Round the World in a ...
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Why is Russian literature considered part of Western culture when so much of Russia is in the East?
Russia is a country that straddles both the East and West, and is culturally very diverse.
Why and how did so much of Russian literature become part of the Western Canon?
To put it another way, why ...
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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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How did the Cutty Wren come to be the national anthem of Tristan da Cunha?
"The Cutty Wren", a traditional English folk song, is the "territorial song" (like national anthem for a British Overseas Territory?) of Tristan da Cunha, one of the remotest ...
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What is the cultural history of family “kissing” in Victorian/Edwardian novels?
I read a lot of Victorian/Edwardian fictional novels, mostly books that were geared towards female readers. Often enough, family members are described as kissing each other. Sometimes a kiss on the ...
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Origin of the story of Gilbert and the Saracen maid
A popular legend about the parents of Thomas Becket (1118–1170), Archbishop of Canterbury, is retold by Charles Dickens in A Child's History of England:
Once upon a time, a worthy merchant of London, ...
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The earliest novel with a robot who isn't "human enough"
Thomas Jones, writing about the Kazuo Ishiguro novel Klara and the Sun, says:
Ishiguro doesn’t get tangled up in the complexities of neural
networks, machine learning, algorithms or the difficulties ...
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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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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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What was the first published book set during a Covid-19 lockdown?
The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic changed the world and many people's lives in countries all over the world in 2020. Much has been written about how writers of fiction have needed to change or shelve ...
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Was Anton Chekhov the earliest to use stream-of-consciousness technique in his works?
Anton Chekhov was a famous Russian short story writer and dramatist. Early in his career, he mastered the form of the one-act play and produced several masterpieces of this genre.
I remember I ...
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Who was the first author of humorous ghost stories?
Although Pliny the Younger is regarded as the first author of a ghost story, I think these stories underwent a 360-degree turn during 19th century when Charles Dickens or Oscar Wilde started writing ...
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What's the first "reverse" poem?
I recently discovered an interesting type of poetry. When read one way, it says one thing and when read a different way, the opposite, all with the same words.
A sub-type of these is known as the ...
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How and when did the term "spoilers" originate?
Nowadays, the word "spoilers" is frequently used to describe a twist, major plot point, or anything which, if known beforehand, might spoil the experience of reading a story. This whole ...
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Oldest Native American written literature?
What's the oldest written publication that was written in a Native American language?
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Etymology of "iamb", as a genre and a type of metre
An excellent verbose answer says that:
Etymologically, the word iambos is related to the Greek word for cripple, with the short syllable representing the lame leg and the long the strong one. ...
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What is the origin of the plot device where a character changes negative views about someone after spending time with them?
I feel like this is a common story element. Someone has a negative view about a person/group of people, and their worldview is changed after they are forced to spend time with that person/group. This ...
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Historical King Ina and Shakespeare's King Lear in the writings of Thomas Hardy
In Thomas Hardy's short(ish) story "The Withered Arm", one of his descriptions of the Wessex countryside features the following cryptic allusion:
It was a long walk; thick clouds made the ...
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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 arguments have scholars used to characterise Kafka's The Metamorphosis as magical realism?
In comments below the question What style are Kafka's novels?, Peter Shor said,
Kafka has been characterized as "magical realism". On the other hand, there are lots of people who disagree ...
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Symbolism and romanticism as literary movements
I'm trying to understand the difference between Symbolism and Romanticism as literary movements. As I understand it, the symbolists explicitly wanted to distance themselves from the romantics.
But if ...
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What characteristics make The Faerie Queene an example of Renaissance literature?
Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene was published in the years 1590 (books I–III) and 1596 (books I–VI, i.e. complete).
It is primarily an allegorical work, and allegories were not new in the ...
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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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Who coined the term ‘Shakespearean sonnet’?
So far, we have had at least two questions about the early history of the English sonnet:
Who introduced the sonnet to English literature? Wyatt or Shakespeare?
Why are Shakespearean sonnets called ...
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Why are Shakespearean sonnets called Shakespearean sonnets?
The term Shakespearean sonnet is frequently used for sonnets with a particular verse pattern and rhyme scheme, namely ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. But from what I can find with a little reading online, this ...
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What is the change in the characterization of the explorers in arctic novels in the past two centuries?
Has the general image of explorers or exploring teams in Arctic novels in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries really changed in essence?
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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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Examples of Zeus's Immoral Nature [closed]
In The Odyssey, Zeus happily allows Poseidon to turn a ship into stone, killing everyone aboard. I think it's safe to say most people alive today would consider this immoral.
What are some other ...
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