31
votes
Is Casanunda a reference in "Witches Abroad"?
Casanunda is a pun on Casanova, changing "over" to "under" (because he's short):
[Casanova] has become so famous for his often complicated and elaborate affairs with women that ...
- 10.3k
23
votes
Accepted
How many of Poe's stories are interconnected?
TL;DR:
There are a few connections between Poe's works, generally via one story being directly or indirectly referenced in another one published later. However, there are two instances of multiple ...
- 5,864
13
votes
Accepted
What’s the link between “The Amazing Maurice” and the Tiffany Aching books?
I'm fairly sure that the link is what might be described as thematic. That is, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents features a boy whose main companions are a group of small non-human people, ...
- 18.4k
12
votes
Accepted
"What a piece of work is man" - echo in The Lord of the Rings?
So...I'm going to say probably coincidence, though there is some evidence in your favor. Thus I'll present the evidence first and then my own conclusion; do with it what you will.
Tolkien on ...
- 4,722
11
votes
Why does Miss Havisham drive fast cars?
There's nothing in Great Expectations that would suggest that Ms. Havisham would be interested in speed at all: as far as I remember, we only ever see her inside Satis House, wearing her wedding-dress,...
- 1,700
10
votes
Accepted
Was the One Ring's malevolent nature foreshadowed in the Hobbit? If so, how?
In the original version of The Hobbit, no.
In any version of the Hobbit, the Ring is not shown to have much effect on Bilbo. He uses it as a useful tool, a way of turning invisible which gets him out ...
- 70.7k
10
votes
Accepted
Is the Ramayana contained in the Mahabharata?
tl;dr
A section of the Mahābhārata narrates the story of Rāma. This section, called the Rāmopākhyāna, is far shorter than the Rāmāyaṇa which, as you correctly note, is a different epic altogether. The ...
- 21.2k
9
votes
Is the Ramayana contained in the Mahabharata?
The Mahabharata does not contain the Ramayana (an epic work 24000 verses long). It does, however, contain the so-called Ramopakhyana which (like the Ramayana) tells the story of Rama and Sita but (...
- 841
8
votes
Accepted
Would a reader of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea miss anything essential without knowing about Jane Eyre?
Yes, a reader of Wide Sargasso Sea who is unaware of its connection to Jane Eyre is pretty much guaranteed to have missed the entire point of the novel.
Jane Eyre is so iconic that Rhys could simply ...
- 21.2k
8
votes
Accepted
Do any of J. D. Salinger's short stories share locations or characters?
Arguably, all of Salinger's published stories share the same "universe," which is his own. That said, specific overlap in characters in currently-published works is limited to the stories and ...
- 1,884
7
votes
Accepted
Are the different mythological series by Rick Riordan set in the same universe?
Yes.
The Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Heroes of Olympus, and The Trials of Apollo are definitely in the same universe – they center on Camp Half-Blood.
In The Kane Chronicles, we can conclude ...
- 23.2k
7
votes
Accepted
Is there strong evidence that "room 5" in V for Vendetta was a conscious reference to Room 101?
I've just finished reading V for Vendetta in its collected trade paperback edition. At the end, there is a short essay by Alan Moore, titled "Behind the Painted Smile", which explains the creative ...
- 8,365
7
votes
Would a reader of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea miss anything essential without knowing about Jane Eyre?
There is no consensus among critics about whether Wide Sargasso Sea stands on its own or not. For example, Francis Wyndham wrote in his introduction to the first edition (1966):
For many years, ...
- 43.8k
7
votes
Accepted
What are the Stephen King connections in The Dark Tower series?
All of them. By the end of The Dark Tower, it is revealed that the story takes place
If you're looking for a list of every explicit reference, Wikipedia had a good list going that you can edit, but ...
- 1,700
6
votes
Accepted
Is there evidence that "Marlfox" actually occurred?
Yes, Marlfox is a solid part of the Redwall chronology.
In the (chronologically) next book, The Taggerung, one subplot of the story revolves around a few Abbey creatures deciphering messages left by ...
- 70.7k
6
votes
What is known about the content of the Ur-Hamlet?
The assumption that an Ur-Hamlet existed is based on a passage from Thomas Nashe's preface to Robert Greene's Menaphon. Nashe writes (bold emphasis mine),
It is a commom practise now a daies amongst ...
- 43.8k
6
votes
Was the One Ring's malevolent nature foreshadowed in the Hobbit? If so, how?
Once Tolkien revised it, it was (slightly) foreshadowed by the way Bilbo lied about the ring. In the first edition, once Gollum lost the contest, he tried to give Bilbo the ring and was ashamed that ...
- 5,812
5
votes
Accepted
How many of the Songs of Innocence and of Experience come in pairs?
Let's start by listing the titles of all the Songs, and noting that you can read them in full here.
I'll now discuss various possible pairings among these poems, but bear in mind that there's no ...
- 70.7k
5
votes
Accepted
What is the relationship between Angelou's poem "Caged bird" and book "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"?
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was the first volume of Maya Angelou's autobigography, which eventually grew to seven volumes. Published in 1969, the title is taken from the third stanza of Paul ...
- 8,086
4
votes
Accepted
What play are these lines a reference to?
Could it be a reference to the ending of The Dumb Waiter? In this play, Gus and Ben are hitmen partners; Gus leaves the room before their victim is due to arrive, Ben prepares his weapon for the ...
- 70.7k
3
votes
Accepted
What is the relationship between the hypotext and the intertext?
The term intertextuality was introduced in the 1960s by members of the Tel Quel group, who collectively published the volume Théorie d'ensemble in 1968 [1]. In this volume, Philippe Sollers criticises ...
- 43.8k
3
votes
What is the role of Jane Eyre in The Cider House Rules?
John Irving speaking in Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art[1] when asked about parallels between David Copperfield and Jane Eyre and The Cider House Rules, spoke of his appreciation of the ...
- 18.4k
3
votes
What are all the love stories referred to in chapter 2 of Mem and Zin?
Shirin you made as sugar for Perwiz
Ferhad shed blood as tears
The poet Nizami Ganjavi, who lived in what is now Azerbaijan in the 12th Century, wrote a poem 'Khosrow o Shirin' which is based on a pre-...
- 18.4k
3
votes
What's with the reference to "Alice in Wonderland" in Nalo Hopkinson's "The Reverse Cheshire Cat"?
Based on another of her short stories, "Ally", we get some insight in Hopkinson's use of the "Cheshire Cat".
Unlike the Cheshire Cat’s, his smile became a little more real as he
quoted back: “‘...
- 1,903
3
votes
Accepted
Was the title of "O Russet Witch!" a quotation from somewhere?
The story was first published under the title ‘His Russet Witch’ in Metropolitan Magazine for February 1921. Fitzgerald changed the title to the more dramatic ‘“O Russet Witch!”’ for the collection ...
- 52.1k
2
votes
Accepted
Are the sun and moon generally personified in Korean folklore, or just in this origin story?
No, not as far as I know of.
Most Korean folk tales are similar to European fairy tales in the sense that each story may share similar themes and motifs, the specifics don't seem to relate. I could be ...
- 2,216
2
votes
What’s the link between “The Amazing Maurice” and the Tiffany Aching books?
In addition to the reading order author's comments, Terry Pratchett himself may be the reason for the link in some people's mind (including my own), to some extent. Note from the Annotated Pratchett ...
- 123
2
votes
How does “The Second Coming” form the background for “A Prayer for My Daughter”?
Much has been written about these two poems, to the extent that many scholarly publications nowadays simply take it as a given, not needing justification, that "A Prayer for my Daughter" is ...
- 70.7k
2
votes
In what way can the image of bowels "packed in furnace" recall an image of a sea "tumbling in harness"?
One of the meanings of “furnace” is:
furnace, n. 3. A closed fireplace for heating a building by means of hot-air or hot-water pipes
Oxford English Dictionary.
(This apparatus is more commonly known ...
- 52.1k
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