7
votes
What is the oldest mention of a unicorn in English literature?
Ælfric, in his Old English glossary, defines the Latin word unicornis (although, being a glossary, I'm not sure this counts for the purpose of the question):
unicornis anhyrne deor; þæt deor hæfð ...
- 1,974
6
votes
Accepted
Earliest work of fiction in which characters using telepathy can't lie
1889: "To Whom This May Come", a short story by Edward Bellamy, originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, February 1889. An 1898 reprint is available at Project Gutenberg.
Plot summary ...
- 3,052
5
votes
Is it a common motif in (western) storytelling that the antagonists are located to the east?
Norse myth associates the east with evil...
From the Voluspa, 1999 Larrington translation:
From the east falls, from poison valleys
a river of knives and swords, Cutting it is called
(stanza 36)
...
- 4,830
5
votes
Earliest work of fiction in which characters using telepathy can't lie
I don't know what the earliest use of telepathy in a work of fiction is, but I don't think there was much in the way of fiction about whole societies of telepaths (without which the lying thing doesn'...
5
votes
Accepted
Are romantic relationships where one character has fair skin and the other dark a motif of Ismat Chughtai's stories?
The motif of a dark lover and a fair beloved is not unique to Chughtai, but is a culturally specific pattern very common in Indian love stories. This pattern can be traced back to medieval poets such ...
- 30.8k
4
votes
Is it a common motif in (western) storytelling that the antagonists are located to the east?
According to the Metzler Lexikon literartischer Symbole ("Metzler Lexicon of Literary Symbols"), edited by Günter Butzer and Joachim Jacob (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2012), the east has been ...
- 48.4k
3
votes
First "female Death"
In St. Francis' Cantico delle Creature, composed in the 1220's (that makes it one of the earliest texts in Italian literature) he praises God for the things he created, among them Sora nostra morte, ...
- 31
3
votes
Why is the painful deflowering of a virgin motif in romance novels so common?
The hymen is a thin membrane which covers the entrance to the vagina.
It can be broken during the first time a woman has penetrative intercourse, but that is not the only way. The hymen is not ...
1
vote
Crime and Punishment - what's with the smiles?
The smile is a sarcastic smirk. Raskolnikov is subtly disrespecting those around him because he believes he has fooled them and comes to the conclusion that he is smarter than them, thus they deserve ...
1
vote
Is it a common motif in (western) storytelling that the antagonists are located to the east?
In Ancient Greece the East (Anatolia, the "Orient") was stereotyped as a place of richness, wealth, immorality, power, luxury - the opposite of a more austere and humble life, but more virtuous, that ...
- 45
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