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 is the meaning of "breaking out and into himself" in Ocean Vuong's "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous"?
I'm reading On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong, and I'm not sure whether I'm grasping the right meaning of this sentence.
He was a boy breaking out and into himself at once.
The ...
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What "easie curbs" of the flesh are meant by Milton in chapter IIII of "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
In book one of The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce, it is written:
But all ingenuous men will see that the dignity & blessing of mariage is plac’t rather in the mutual enjoyment of that ...
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What does "I've mortgaged all my castles in the air" mean?
From the lyrics of "Everything happens to me", what do these 2 lines mean?
At first my heart thought you could break this jinx for me
That love would turn the trick to end despair
But now I ...
user478837
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What does Mrs Weston mean by "do not beat me" in "Emma"?
In Jane Austen's Emma, when Emma and Mrs. Weston are arguing about the possibility of Mr. Knightley being in love with Jane Fairfax, Mrs. Weston finishes off with this line:
'Well, Mrs Weston,' said ...
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Who is Liza in Noel Coward's 'London Pride'?
In the song "London Pride" by Noel Coward, do the lyrics "Whoa, Liza" and/or "Oh, Liza," (depending on the version) followed by a mention of "Covent Garden Market,&...
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What might Milton mean by "the work of male and female" in his "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
In book one of The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce, it is written:
Not that licence and levity and unconsented breach of faith should herein be countnanc’t, but that some conscionable, and ...
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In Wister's _The Virginian_, why is calling a white man white considered a compliment?
In the second chapter of Owen Wister's The Virginian, what appears to be a factual statement about the titular character's race is described by the narrator as a "high compliment":
“Yes, ...
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What did Adam Smith mean by "money price of labour" in "The Wealth of Nations"?
From Chapter V of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith:
Though the real value of a corn rent, it is to be observed,
however, varies much less from century to ...
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Of whose calumny does Leontes speak in scene 2 Act 2 of "The Winter's Tale"?
In the first scene of act II of The Winter's Tale, Leontes says:
You (my Lords)
Looke on her, marke her well: be but about
To say she is a goodly Lady, and
The ...
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What does Leontes mean by saying that he is blessed and cursed in scene 2 Act 2 of "The Winter's Tale"?
In the first scene of act II of The Winter's Tale, Leontes says:
How blest am I
In my iust Censure? in my true Opinion?
Alack, for lesser knowledge, how accurs'd,
In being so blest? There may be in ...
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What does Norman Mailer mean by "touch all the ultimates, and still have it read like speed"?
This is a sentence from Norman Mailer's book The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing. I am stuck on the meanings of the words "ultimates" and "speed", which don't seem to correspond ...
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Meaning of "sheer hulk" in the poem/song "Tom Bowling" by Charles Dibdin = "just a hulk of a ship" or "a floating crane"?
From the poem/song "Tom Bowling" by Charles Dibdin:
Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of our crew;
No more he'll hear the tempest howling,
For death has broach'd him to:
...
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Is this phrase in Thomas Hardy's poem The Stranger's Song addressing the audience to catch their attention?
Following is a poem by Thomas Hardy. There are sentences 'Simple shepherds all' three times. I think these sentences are a kind of addressing towards shepherds(=audience). However, one of my friends ...
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What does the title "Auguries of Innocence" (William Blake) mean?
William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" starts with a quatrain whose relation to the rest of the poem is not immediately apparent to me, describing a powerful kind of vision/imagination ...
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What is the meaning of "They don't let you" in "The House At Pooh Corner"?
This is from The House At Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne:
Then, suddenly again, Christopher Robin, who was Still looking at the world with his chin in his hands, called out
“Pooh!”
"Yes?" said ...
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What kind of letters is "many an unexpected letter that WOL had written to himself"?
Piglet opened the letter-box and climbed in.
Then, having untied himself, he began to squeeze into the slit, through which in the old days when front doors were front doors, many an unexpected letter ...
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Can a ceiling have a front door that had once been a front door?
Pooh and Piglet and Owl had a chat in Owl's house but it was blown down.
Pooh sat on the floor which had once been a wall, and gazed up at the ceiling which had once been another wall, with a front ...
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Meaning of "his own coach and six, or his own coach and sixty"
What is the meaning of the "six [...] and sixty" passage in the following quote from Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Chapter 3?
So with the three passengers shut up in the narrow compass of ...
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What does “it” refer to in this line from “The Mental Hospital Garden”?
What is “it” in the following lines from the poem "The Mental Hospital Garden" by William Carlos Williams?
It is a bounty
from a last year’s bird’s nest.
I have two weak theories: The birds ...
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What did Adam Smith mean by "toil and trouble" in "The Wealth of Nations"?
From chapter V of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith:
The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the
man who wants to acquire it, is the ...
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1
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What does "and who is poorer than he who is in love..." from "The Mental Hospital Garden" by William Carlos Williams mean?
What do the following lines from the poem "The Mental Hospital Garden" by William Carlos Williams mean?
and who is poorer than he
who is in love
when birds are nesting
in the spring of the ...
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What does Thoreau mean by making one's pack in this paragraph from "Slavery in Massachusetts"?
In Slavery in Massachusetts, Thoreau writes:
Again it happens that the Boston Court-House is full of armed men, holding prisoner and trying a MAN, to find out if he is not really a SLAVE. Does any ...
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What does "the balance of this paragraph" mean in the annotated American Gods?
In Gaiman's Annotated American Gods, the annotator often refers to the balance of a paragraph.
For example annotation #73 says "The balance of this paragraph does not appear in the first edition&...
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Of what judge does Thoreau speak in this passage from "A Plea for Captain John Brown"?
In A Plea for Captain John Brown, Thoreau writes:
Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly ...
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What does "gone round the world, but not into the world" mean in Patrick O'Brian's Desolation Island?
What is the meaning of "gone round the world, but never into the world" mean in Patrick O'Brian's Desolation Island, and how does the character Jack understand that his friend means he was ...
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What are the "sneaping winds", and what is "put forth too truly", in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale"?
In the second scene of The Winter's Tale, Polixenes says:
Sir, that's to morrow:
I am question'd by my feares, of what may chance,
Or breed vpon our absence, that may blow
No sneaping Winds at home, ...
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What does Janie mean when she says “When you pull down yo' britches, you look lak de change uh life.”
In a crucial scene in Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston, 1937), Janie mocks Joe's age and illness, ending with:
“Naw, Ah ain't no young gal no mo' but den Ah ain't no old woman neither....
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What was the original meaning of "rolling their eyes"?
While reading War and Peace translators use variants of the phrase "rolling their eyes" in odd places. For example, one character is described as "rolling their eyes in terror". ...
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Of what veil does Thoreau speak and what does he mean by being missing in this passage from "A Plea for Captain John Brown"?
In A Plea for Captain John Brown, Thoreau writes:
This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death—the possibility of a man’s dying. It seems as if no man had ever died in America before; ...
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What did Thoreau mean in the "treason" passage from "A Plea for Captain John Brown"?
In A Plea for Captain John Brown, Thoreau writes:
Treason! Where does such treason take its rise? I cannot help thinking of you as you deserve,
ye governments. Can you dry up the fountains of thought?...
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Meaning of "not to say this is a bad kind of poetry" etc. in Wordsworth's Preface to the "Lyrical Ballads"
At one point in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1800), Wordsworth quotes a parody of simple verses by Samuel Johnson and compares it with a stanza from the "Babes in the Wood". Then he ...
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Meaning of "never taken not being shot at for granted" in "Dream Catcher" by Margaret Salinger
I'm reading the memoir Dream Catcher by Margaret Salinger (daughter of J. D. Salinger). In this paragraph I have some difficulties:
While the war was often in the foreground of our family life, it ...
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1
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What does Thoreau mean about counting votes in this passage?
In A Plea for Captain John Brown, Thoreau writes:
A man does a brave and humane deed, and at once, on all sides, we hear people and parties declaring, “I didn’t do it, nor countenance him to do it, ...
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What is meant by Thoreau in "A church that can never have done with excommunicating Christ while it exists!"?
In A Plea for Captain John Brown, Thoreau writes:
A church that can never have done with excommunicating Christ while it exists! Away with your broad and flat churches, and your narrow and tall ...
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2
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What does Thoreau mean about the Tract Society printing the story of Putnam?
In A Plea for Captain John Brown, Thoreau writes:
“Served him right”—“A dangerous man”—“He is undoubtedly insane.” So they proceed to live their sane, and wise, and altogether admirable lives, ...
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What does "to the sack" mean in Hunchback of Notre Dame?
What does "to the sack" mean in this context:
To the sack, to the sack!” rose the cry on all sides.
At that moment, the tapestry of the dressing-room, which we have described above, was ...
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"This was the forest near Ingolstadt" in Frankenstein
The following is a passage in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I am wondering what the boldfaced "This" refers to.
Before, dark and opaque bodies had surrounded me, impervious to my touch or ...
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2
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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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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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Who is "Old Nicky" in The Son by Philipp Meyer?
In Chapter 67, Eli McCullough thinks:
I started to tell her, but couldn't. Old Nicky himself had pinched my jaw shut.
Who is Old Nicky? I suspect it's some folklore, but can't find anything on him.
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What does "were with him when Divine Love first moved those fair things" mean in Dante's "Inferno"?
Towards the beginning of the Inferno, when the narrator encounters the leapord, lion, and wolf, we find this passage:
The time was at the beginning of the morning; and the sun was mounting up with ...
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What does "nodditankijelli" mean in The Book of Dave?
Much of the dialog and characters' thoughts in The Book of Dave are written in Mokni, a mostly phonetically-spelled derivative of Cockney English. A glossary is available to explain some of it, and ...
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How am I supposed to parse the "...she might have passed over more..." line in "Emma"?
I'm having trouble parsing this excerpt from Jane Austen's Emma, particularly the bolded sentence:
He was not a great favourite with his fair sister-in-law. Nothing wrong in him escaped her. She was ...
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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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Meaning of 'more familiar to reason than to the imagination'
The following is an extract from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. What does the boldfaced phrase mean?
Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice and injustice, that I read in books or heard from others, ...
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The “Sea of Faith” in Matthew Arnold’s poem ‘Dover Beach’
Does the “Sea of Faith” in Matthew Arnold’s poem ‘Dover Beach’ have biblical significance?
Here is the third stanza of the poem, where the phrase appears:
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, ...
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What are "inward meats" in Homer?
In both the Iliad and the Odyssey there are many mentions of "inward meats," such as:
When the thigh-bones were burned and they had tasted the inward meats, they cut the rest up small, put ...
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What does this excerpt from "To Kill a Mockingbird" about Atticus shooting the dog mean?
From chapter 10 of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee:
Mr. Tate jumped off the porch and ran to the Radley Place. He stopped in front of the dog, squatted, turned around and tapped his finger on his ...
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"Glancing to heaven" in Andrew's Brain by E. L. Doctorow
In Andrew's Brain by E. L. Doctorow:
Naturally the rug was rolled up and Bill and Betty did one of their
vaudeville routines, the old soft shoe, a George M. Cohan number, “…
for it was Mary, Mary, ...
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1
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"Depressing someone into something" in Andrew's Brain by E. L. Doctorow
I'm reading Andrew's Brain by E. L. Doctorow. In this paragraph I have some difficulties:
... but your moodiness, she said, I don’t know, that’s so unusual, a
powerful thing, almost like your way of ...