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How did people know the meaning to Shakespeare's new words?
I don't pretend to know much about the history of literature, but I was always told that Shakespeare invented an awful lot of words, 1700 is usually the number given. How did anyone know what they meant? I know some were portmanteaus, and some were…
darthspongebob
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Are Frog and Toad more than just friends?
In a 1977 interview with The Lion and the Unicorn, Arnold Lobel said:
You know, if an adult has an unhappy love affair, he writes about it. He exorcises it out of himself, perhaps, by writing a novel about it. Well, if I have an unhappy love…
BESW
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21
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Were English poets of the sixteenth century aware of the Great Vowel Shift?
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of English vowel sounds, marking the dividing line between Middle English and Modern English. A wholesale shift of sounds took place during the fifteenth century, including (most…
Gareth Rees
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21
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5 answers
Why do the Pern novels use regular words as profanity?
In the Pern novels, characters use words that would normally be innocuous as profanity. Some prominent examples are "shards" and "shells". There's a list of in-universe curse words that I found at the back of Dragonflight:
PERNESE OATHS
By the…
bobble
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21
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2 answers
How did the Inklings originate?
The (original) Inklings were a group of Oxford academics and writers, their most famous members including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Hugo Dyson. They used to meet regularly, often at the Eagle & Child pub in Oxford, and read…
Rand al'Thor
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21
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1 answer
Why is the order of The Chronicles of Narnia changed from original publication?
When I originally read The Chronicles of Narnia I read an older boxset which has the books numbered in original publication order:
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Horse and…
sanpaco
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21
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2 answers
What circumstances is Bachchan referring to in this poem?
I came across a poem titled, Saathi, Sab Kuch Sahna Hoga (You have to tolerate this all, my friend) by Harivansh Rai Bachchan. I read this poem years ago and it is taken from an older book. Here is an excerpt of this poem:
मानव पर जगती का शासन,…
A J
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21
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How much of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is based on real events?
Ernest Hemingway wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls, the story of an American soldier fighting in the Spanish Civil War, a few years after his own experiences as an American journalist reporting on the Spanish Civil War. I know that various real-life…
Rand al'Thor
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How much experience did Tolkien have in writing?
J.R.R Tolkien famously created his world and then created the stories he put in them. He was a professor, historian, and linguist by profession, and his writing style in The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion is very history-like. …
CHEESE
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What does it mean to laugh like the letter k?
In Abuelito Who by Sandra Cisneros, the symbolic meaning of one line is quite confusing. The narrator is referring to her grandfather (abuelo), and she says he:
who used to laugh like the letter k
I'm not exactly sure what this means; does this…
fi12
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20
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2 answers
Why does the Lady of Shalott stay instead of stray?
In Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalott" there is the following verse:
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the…
Mirte
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20
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6 answers
The meaning of "The rest is silence" in "Hamlet"
Hamlet's very last words are
The rest is silence.
What do they actually mean? This being Shakespeare, I reckon the significance of these words cannot be only the banal comparison between death and silence.
I wonder if these words have a…
ΥΣΕΡ26328
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20
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1 answer
Censorship of African-American characters in "Tintin in America"
From the Wikipedia page on Tintin in America:
For the 1973 edition published in the U.S., the publishers made Hergé remove African-American characters from the book, and redraw them as Whites or Hispanics because they did not want to encourage…
Rand al'Thor
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20
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1 answer
Are there two Pooh?
Now one autumn morning when the wind had blown all the leaves off the trees in the night, and was trying to blow the branches off, Pooh and Piglet were sitting in the Thoughtful Spot and wondering.
"What I think," said Pooh, "is I think we'll go to…
Yuuichi Tam
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1 answer
What is the Neverending Story's moral about power?
In Michael Ende's brilliant novel The Neverending Story, the world of Fantastica is ruled by the Childlike Empress, a mysterious ruler who is given a different name each time a new human comes to her world. When Bastian
seeks to take her place as…
Rand al'Thor
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