Questions tagged [meaning]
Questions regarding the meaning of certain terms or phrases used in a work of literature. If your question concerns the symbolic significance of something whose surface meaning is clear, use the [symbolism] tag instead. Please add specific tags as well: for the author (if known), the language (if not English), and either the work itself (if long) or the [poetry] or [short-stories] tags for short works.
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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 ...
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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 ...
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What did Mrs. Lippett say to her?
In imagination she followed first one equipage then another to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the ...
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Did Humbert kill a female pedestrian towards the end of Lolita?
Towards the end of the novel Lolita when Humbert has just killed Quilty and starts driving like a maniac, he says this:
I turned off the road, and after two or three big bounces, rode up a grassy ...
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What are "abortive sorrows" and "short-winded elations" in "The Great Gatsby"?
From chapter 1 of The Great Gatsby:
No — Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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?
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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What does Tennyson mean by "by the bird's song ye may learn the nest"?
In Tennyson's The Marriage of Geraint, the protagonist, Geraint, has just heard the song of Enid, the daughter of his host, Yniol. When Enid's song concludes, Yniol says the following to Geraint:
'...
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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 ...
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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:...
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Definition of "Victorian vandal"
I'm reading Agatha Christie's book "Dumb witness", in which there is a passage after Poirot and Hastings have their lunch and head to the church.
Though an attractive specimen of what the ...
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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 ...
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What does “inward eye” mean?
William Wordsworth’s poem "The Daffodils" contains the following lines:
For oft, when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
which is bliss of ...
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Does this edit in The Magician's Nephew (from "had her bathe" to "had her bath") fundamentally change the meaning of the sentence?
Later editions of C.S. Lewis 'The Magician's Nephew' have been edited, presumably to reflect modern usage.
Polly went down and had her bathe; at least she said that was what
she'd been doing, but we ...
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Symbolism in saying that a grove, in the agitation of a storm, cannot be delineated from its picture in water
In the book The Information - A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick, there is a portion of text which speaks about the gradually increasing meanings/senses attached to verbs like go, make, take ...
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What does Heraclitus mean by "if you do not expect the unexpected"?
I lit upon this quote on p. 177 in National Geographic's photo book Sublime Nature, that I riffled through based on recent posts. Goodreads has it.
I don't know any philosophy, and don't understand ...
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What does “be one traveler” mean in “The Road Not Taken”?
In “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, the first stanza reads as follows:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down ...
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What did W M Praed mean by 'see if he turns out his toe'?
I had the pleasure of coming across one of Winthrop Mackworth Praed's better-known poems the other day, his 'A Letter of Advice', which purports to be a verse epistle from one young woman to another, ...
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What are "devices of orthodoxy" in this context?
White always mates because the better player has opted for the white
pieces. But black is free to win if he can.
In that its citizens are free to play the game of memory control, of
working out the ...
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What is the "slow wheel" in Frost's "Into My Own"?
Into My Own, by Robert Frost (first two stanzas):
One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But ...
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What does "Yira" mean in "Yira, Yira" by Carlos Gardel?
In the song Yira, Yira by Carlos Gardel (which was also later performed by Los Piojos) I am curious about the phrase, well, "Yira, Yira" (full lyrics).
I couldn't find the definition in many ...
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What does "pull down the blinds" mean in Yeats's poem "The Mountain Tomb"?
Pour wine and dance, if manhood still have pride,
Bring roses, if the rose be yet in bloom;
The cataract smokes on the mountain side.
Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.
Pull down ...
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What does "ceremony of innocence" mean In "The Second Coming"?
The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The ...
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What does "Christnique" mean in "1985" by Anthony Burgess?
This word appears twice in 1985 by Anthony Burgess:
‘That’s it. Without us how would the Christniques get on?’
They go out wanting to be cracked. Then they practise the Christnique of loving your ...
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What is the meaning of the following sentence of The Swimmer by John Cheever?
What is the meaning of the following sentence of The Swimmer by John Cheever?
His life was not confining, and the delight he took in this thought could not be explained by its suggestion of escape.
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Pronouns in Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
I have four questions regarding Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard".
What is the subject of "molest" in this stanza?
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The ...
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What did Bilbo mean by telling Frodo that Aragorn "thought the whole thing rather above my head"?
This phrase is taken from The Fellowship of the Ring, book II, chapter 1, page 265 (emphasis added):
"You needn't," said Bilbo. "As a matter of fact it was all mine. Except that ...
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What do ‘redda', 'the taste of babat', 'Kottu Aiya', and ‘Kunu kaaraya’ mean? (From "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida")
I am translating The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida and am confused about the following sentences:
"those knots were looser than your Amma's redda." What does 'Redda' refers to?
"this is ...
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What does "nature" mean in "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin"?
When I first saw this quote on p. 139 in National Geographic's photo book Sublime Nature: Photographs That Awe and Inspire, I interpreted "nature" to mean flora and fauna. I interpreted ...
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What were the changes in the Spirit of the West at the end of first millennium?
From the first Chapter of The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung
What will the future bring? From time immemorial, this question has
occupied men’s minds, though not always to the same degree.
...
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What scene is "To the west the Park dripped wretchedly...about its affairs" describing?
The fog was like a saffron blanket soaked in ice-water. It had hung
over London all day and at last was beginning to descend. the sky was
yellow as a duster and the rest was a granular black, ...
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"The legend of the oyster and the pearl" by Dario Fo
A poem written by Dario Fo, "The legend of the oyster and the pearl", text here (included in the play Isabella, tre caravelle e un cacciaballe) ends with the lines
di morte nel pallore
lei ...
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In George Meredith's "Ode to the Comic Spirit", what does "Thou guardian issue of the harvest brain !" mean?
The Internet Archive (see my tips for using this website at the end of this question) has in it's entirety J. B. Priestley's biography of George Meredith. On page 115 Priestley says that the first ...
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What do these metaphors about hardship in "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" mean?
I have been racking my brain with the meaning of three expressions:
taut-jawed men - does it mean that they are stern looking, that their facial expression is tight and tense?
brick-lipped, hard-...
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What did J. B. Priestley mean by, "Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself—with a smile."
One of the most popular J. B. Priestley quotes is:
Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself—with a smile.
Source: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/j-b-priestley-quotes
https://literature....
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What does this mean? "To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to Heaven prematurely."
In the short story, Reginald on the Academy, Saki writes:
[Reginald]: "To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to Heaven prematurely."
Firstly, does this quote from Reginald imply ...
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What's the meaning of "well over the fast" in the following passage?
In Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party (1957), Goldberg (a Jewish character) wishes Stanley a happy birthday and says "well over the fast." What does he mean by it? I know that this expression is ...
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Meaning of “It takes forty men with their feet on the ground to keep one man with his head in the air" in Small Gods by Terry Pratchett?
I am currently on page 36 of Terry Pratchett's Small Gods.
One sentence reads:
Kitchens and storerooms and craftsmen's workshops belonging to the Church's civilian population honey- combed the ...
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What is a “sawney tea” in Kingsley Amis’ “The Riverside Villas Murder”?
From The Riverside Villas Murder by Kingsley Amis:
‘Good.’ The colonel worked his bell-push. ‘Thank you for coming, Peter.'
‘Oh no, sir, thank you for a sawney tea. And the music.’
Kingsley Amis (...
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Meaning of "No turban walks across the lessened floors" in Wallace Stevens' "The Plain Sense of Things"
In Wallace Stevens' "The Plain Sense of Things", the meaning of every sentence, the sense of every verse, every image, is clear and straightforward; nothing is impressionistic or vague - ...
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Meaning of "a bride high-mated with the spheres" in Sarojini Naidu's 'To India'
Sarojini Naidu's To India uses a nurturing mother as a metaphor for the country throughout the poem. The first few lines run so:
O young through all thy immemorial years!
Rise, Mother, rise, ...
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Explain "If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you"
In Kipling's poem IF, there is this line:
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you
To achieve that, it seems you would have to be so closed off, insulated, and emotionally barricaded that ...
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What mechanics does Thoreau associate with earning bread?
In the first chapter of Walden; or Life in the Woods, Thoreau writes:
If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not pursue the common course, which is ...
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Meaning of "twist of felt" in "The Tiger in the Smoke"
I found this description of the character Meg Elginbrodde in Margery Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke:
A swathe of flax-white hair protruded from a twist of felt, and underneath was something not ...
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Meaning of "her parish and her poultry" in "Pride and Prejudice"
From volume 2, chapter 5 of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen:
Elizabeth could safely say that it was a great happiness where that was the case, and with equal sincerity could add, that she firmly ...
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What does "Which do you want — the truth or my resignation? I won’t lie for you" in this context from Asimov's book I, Robot indicate?
The politician straightened out of his chair. “Then we shall see what the insides of Mr. Byerley look like. It will mean publicity for U. S. Robots — but I gave you your chance.”
Lanning turned ...
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