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When was Hermann Hesse arrested for ‘seducing a young girl’?
I've been reading ‘Autobiographical Writings’ by Hesse. In the section ‘Life story briefly told’, there’s the following quote:
At the age of more than seventy, just after two universities had singled me out for honorary degrees, I was brought to…
user19904
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Meaning of the "quips" from Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita
In Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, Koroviev - one of Woland's entourage - does a deal with a housing chairman to rent an apartment for his master. As he counts out the money, he makes two peculiar utterances:
The counting-up took place,…
Matt Thrower
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13
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Why the smiling devils in Hergé's 'The Broken Ear'?
At the end of The Broken Ear (one of the Tintin adventures), the villains Alonso and Ramón are chased, presumably to hell, by a gaggle of winged, horned, merry devils.
It, as far as I can tell, is one of the few fantastic scenes ever featured in…
CDR
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13
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Can anyone remind me who wrote this essay about qualifying remarks? (Mark Twain, maybe?)
It might be Mark Twain or O.Henry.
It discusses the shortcomings of that era's novels and short stories. Specifically, it parodies authors' remarks qualifying dialogue. The author of the essay claims that those remarks have become so mindless and…
Ricky
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Meaning/significance of "All the King's horses" in the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme?
If you're not familiar with the nursery rhyme: after Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall, you get the two lines
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again
But what do the horses have to do with anything? Talking…
chausies
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Is this a political reference in "Ozma of Oz"?
Ozma of Oz, one of the several rather lesser-known sequels to L Frank Baum's classic The Wizard of Oz (full text here), contains the following passage in Chapter 6, "The Heads of Langwidere":
To their disappointment they found the door tightly…
Rand al'Thor
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What is the earliest hybrid graphic novel?
Malice (2009) was the first hybrid graphic novel I read, though I've seen more than one other since.
By "hybrid graphic novel," I mean a book that contains passages of both traditional, unillustrated text, as well as graphic passages, with captioned…
Shokhet
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What is the name of a short story where a computer insists 2+2 is 5?
Many years ago in a US middle school, in an honors literature class we read a short story in English that has stuck with me since and I haven't been able to find it.
Roughly:
someone creates a computer (called an automaton or something?
"as is…
linter-purgatory
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What does a dog barking at a crow signify?
In Much ado about nothing by William Shakespeare, Act 1 Scene 1, Beatrice declares to Benedick
'I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swears he loves me.'
I understand that Beatrice is basically saying 'I would rather X than hearing a…
Beastly Gerbil
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Is this a typo in my copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame?
Nevertheless, as be harangued them, the satisfaction and admiration unanimously excited by his costume were dissipated by his words;
Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (AmazonClassics Edition) (p. 29). AmazonClassics. Kindle Edition.
Is the…
ICD
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In Kerouac's On The Road, what is snakejuice?
Fairly straightforward question. There are a lot of slang terms for drugs in On the Road, but I was still rather startled by "snakejuice"
"Man, do you imagine what it would be like if we found a jazzjoint in these swamps, with great big black…
Matt Thrower
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13
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Had Keats read any of Homer's works before reading Chapman's translation of them?
In "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," John Keats writes:
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet never did I breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak it loud and bold
Was…
Kevin Troy
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Why would Henry want to close the breach?
Henry exhorts his men to attack the city of Harfleur (Henry V - Act 3, Scene 1)
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and…
Valorum
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Do Holmes and Challenger coinhabit the same fictional world?
Doyle published The Lost World well after both killing off and reviving Sherlock Holmes. He wrote about Professor Challenger and Holmes concurrently for about fourteen years, and continued to write Professor Challenger stories for a few years after…
BESW
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Was Stevenson's Treasure Island influenced by Poe?
I read on Wikipedia that:
During the same period, Edgar Allan Poe wrote, "MS Found in a Bottle" (1833) and the intriguing tale of buried treasure, "The Gold-Bug" (1843). All of these works influenced Stevenson's end product. [...] Stevenson also…
Rand al'Thor
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