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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Understanding the plotline of “The Smile” by Ted Hughes
I'm reading Ted Hughes' "The Smile" (text version), and I'm trying to understand its plotline.
More specifically: what's the nature of the scenes wherein the poem's protagonist, the smile, ...
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Meaning of "Illimba", "mani" and "acuminus" in "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy?
I'm reading The God of Small Things, a novel by Keralan author Arundhati Roy. She masterfully plays with words, sometimes transforming them, mimicking the way a seven year old would (the main ...
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Brideshead Revisited: Prince Rupert’s Horse
Hooper, in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited,
was no romantic. He had not as a child ridden with Rupert's horse or sat among the camp fires at Xanthus-side; at the age when my eyes were dry to all ...
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What is the “presence” in Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’?
In Wordsworth’s ‘Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey’ he describes a “presence”:
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated ...
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Understanding comparisons in Crowcolour by Ted Hughes
In the poem "Crowcolour", the shortest of Ted Hughes' Crow poems, there's a series of comparisons of Crow's blackness with other black images.
Here's the full poem:
Crow was so much ...
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The motif of Tom O' Bedlam
The 17th-century motif of Tom O' Bedlam has always been one that I hold much affection and wonder for (as can be assumed by the choice of username on my part.)
The motif most famously makes an ...
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What is the "hidden something" in Joseph Conrad's: Youth
In Joseph Conrad's short story Youth: A Narrative, Conrad writes
What made them do it—what made them obey me when I, thinking consciously how fine it was, made them drop the bunt of the foresail ...
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In what way would windows appease or calm us?
Alain Bashung's song Sur un trapèze, with lyrics by Gaëtan Roussel
(see the Wikipedia article about the album Bleu pétrole, released in 2008),
begins with the following lines (emphasis and links ...
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In the given line, what is the relation between ‘short-sighted’ and ‘education’? What does it mean by strict views on education?
In Act II of The Importance of Being Earnest, Gwendolen says this in a conversation with Cecily:
Gwendolen: [...] And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully ...
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Why did "the human race became a small committee surrounded by affectionate animals" for Sartre in the Words?
What is Sartre's metaphor meaning in the Words when saying :
"The human race became a small committee surrounded by affectionate animals."
The context is when he begins to become familiar ...
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What does "Rebirth of Slick" mean when it quotes "On the Subway"?
Digable Planets' Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like That) ("Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space)," 1993, track 06, released as a single in 1992) (genius.com link) quotes the "blink blink" passages ...
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What's all the blinking about?
On the Subway ("The Last Poets," 1970, track 02) (genius.com link) concludes with shouting the word "blink" a lot, and I'm not sure what it means.
On the surface level, I figure it might be ...
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Nietzsche: It is improbable that you are not mistaken: double negative
In Beyond Good and Evil, chapter 1, #16, Nietzsche is criticizing idealism, and he says:
He who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by an appeal to a sort of intuitive perception, ...
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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's the symbolism of the Cid's beard?
The book El "Cantar de Mio Cid" y la épica medieval española by Alan Deyermond, at page 37, mentions
el simbolismo de la barba del Cid
that is, "the symbolism of the Cid's beard",...
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Why did Halle have butter all over his face
In Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, Sethe's husband Halle never came back to Baby Suggs' house after planning to run away from Sweet Home.
After Paul D arrives, he later blurts out to Sethe of what he ...
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Meaning of ‘matted well’ and ‘silk gowns’ in Bleak House
I’ve come across the following passage in Chapter 1 of Bleak House by Charles Dickens:
On such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or three of whom have inherited it from their ...
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Meaning of wordplay on 'which' and 'witch' in Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country
I'm reading Matt Ruff's horror novel Lovecraft Country (2016). The second chapter, entitled "Dreams of the Which House", is a story about a haunted house.
I found the title plays on Lovecraft's ...
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What does Athena’s statement to Zeus at the beginning of The Odyssey reveal?
I was told to analyze this passage in book 1 of The Odyssey, having read only books 1-4:
And sparkling-eyed Athena drove the matter home: “Father, son of Cronus, our high and mighty king, surely he ...
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Meaning of this line in Candida by Shaw
There is a speech by Lexy in the beginning of Act I when he is talking to Proserpine:
LEXY. Ah, if you women only had the same clue to Man's strength that you have to his weakness, Miss Prossy, there ...
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In The Wall Jumper, what is the meaning of the very last line about walls still standing?
In The Wall Jumper by Peter Schneider the very last line is:
The city outside, with its fire walls, garden walls, border walls - those walls will still be standing when no one is left to move ...
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What is the meaning of Izquierdo's ending statement?
In the very end (Act III, Scene 11) of Emmanuel Roblès's play Montserrat, Izquierdo replies to Father Coronil's, after asking if he had regretted his decision:
ENGLISH:
No. He only talked to ...
user2354
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What's the meaning of "you should worry" in the following lines from Pinter's Birthday Party?
What's the meaning of "you should worry" in the following lines from Pinter's Birthday Party (emphasis mine)?
LULU. You’re tickling me!
GOLDBERG. You should worry.
LULU. I’ve always liked ...
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Meaning of Proust's "Real life, life at last laid bare and illuminated ... is literature"
Marcel Proust writes in The Past Recaptured (English translation by Andreas Mayor, 1970):
Real life, life at last laid bare and illuminated—the only life in consequence which can be said to be really ...
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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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Explain a quote from "The Great Wall of China" by Franz Kafka
Can anyone explain the following quote from the short story "The Great Wall of China" by Franz Kafka:
First, one must realize that at that time certain achievements were brought to fruition ...
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What does "just look" mean in Judged?
In Judged by Ziyad Marar, the author was discussing why it's harder for women to be both nice and in control, the twin pillars of good reputaion:
It turns out that while the blend of being nice and ...
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Meaning of a "dry palate" and "frozen rain" in Achebe's "Things Fall Apart"
I am currently reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, consider the following passage.
The colonizers just came to the tribe of Mbanta and everyone seemed uninterested...
But there was a young ...
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Catcher in the Rye - Chapter 1 "If I get a chance to remember that kind of stuff..."
In Catcher in the Rye, the narrator failed his school so he had to leave. Before leaving, he thought to say good-by to his history teacher. Then, he brought up his memory of playing football with his ...
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Does Rousseau say that men are slaves of governments and laws?
Jean-Jaques Rousseau wrote Discours sur les sciences et les arts. In the very first part, the third paragraph says the following:
Original (French)
L'esprit a ses besoins, ainsi que le corps. Ceux-ci ...
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What happened to Mohini?
In Premchand's short story "The Desired Destination" (first published in 1911, available here in its original Urdu), the narrator is in love with a girl named Mohini and opens by saying that ...
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Interpretation of a Camus Quote
In The Plague, Rieux, the main character of the novel, in Chapter 15, claims that
I've seen too much of hospitals to relish any idea of collective punishment.
What does he mean by that? How exactly ...
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What does Saki mean by "the Fiscal Question"?
In Reginald on Tariffs, Saki writes:
[Reginald]: I’m not going to discuss the Fiscal Question (said Reginald); I wish to be original. At the same time, I think one suffers more than one realises ...
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What is the meaning and significance of "urubutinga" in Mário de Andrade's "O lundu do escritor difícil"
The title is suggestive enough to elicit an understanding that Andrade probably purposefully made this poem difficult to read for people who are not familiar with Tupi culture. A conscious effort of ...
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Why do Albanians "take life whenever they get the opportunity"?
In Reginald on Tariffs, Saki writes:
There are only two classes that really can’t help taking life seriously—schoolgirls of thirteen and Hohenzollerns; they might be exempt. Albanians come under ...
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Understanding the meaning of "Eructation of unhealthy souls" in T.S. Eliot's Burnt Norton
In the third section of Burnt Norton we find these lines
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Eructation have two meanings
Belching
Eruption
So, if we take up the second ...
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What does James Baldwin mean by 'democratic' in his open letter to Angela Davis?
James Baldwin's open letter to Angela Davis contains the following sentence (emphasis added):
The will of the people, in America, has always been at the mercy of an
ignorance not merely phenomenal, ...
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What does Walt Whitman mean by "going in for my chances"?
From "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman:
What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,
Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first ...
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Analysis of "Liberty Tree" by Thomas Paine
I am having some trouble comprehending a portion of "Liberty Tree" by Thomas Paine, and was unable to find a decent analysis of it. It is my understanding that this poem is about the Liberty ...
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What does Lorca mean by ‘the oppressed reds’ and ‘garnet violence’ in his poem ‘The King of Harlem’?
I've already asked one question on this poem and I did think to include this question along with it but decided against it as the poem is quite long, though of course not as long as some ancient epics ...
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What is the difference between emotions and feelings in Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads?
In the Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), Wordsworth famously wrote that
all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: (...).
He later adds (my emphasis):
...
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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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What is the meaning of this excerpt from "The Scarlet Letter"?
What is the meaning of this excerpt from chapter 3 of The Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne?
They were, doubtless, good men, just and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not ...
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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 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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In Crane's "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen", does Helen turn into a neon sign?
In
Yannella, Philip R. “‘Inventive Dust’: The Metamorphoses of ‘For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen.’” Contemporary Literature, vol. 15, no. 1, 1974, pp. 102–22. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/...
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What does “it” refer to in this song by Kensington?
To what does ‘it’ refer in "Part of Me" by Kensington? What is "a part of me"?
It is a part of me
And it breaks my heart to see
I was a part of you
When no one else could be
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What does "Mine is a watery pit / Painless with immense distance" from Alt-J “Taro” mean?
Mine is a watery pit
Painless with immense distance
Is this an allusion to something or were the lines written originally by the songwriters?
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Meaning of "They don't have alibis" in "The Intuitionist"
The traffic at quitting time is a bother. Radio station WCAM equips
men with binoculars and positions them at strategic overpasses to
describe the gnarls and tangles. Lila Mae is never able to
...
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Meaning of "They’re that important" in "The Intuitionist"
This part of Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist has been troubling me for a few days.
The trip is everything to elevator inspectors—the bumps and shudders,
not the banalities of departure and ...
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