Literature Stack Exchange
Literature Stack Exchange

Most Popular

more tags
1500 questions
9
votes
1 answer

Reading order for Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere

Brandon Sanderson has plans in place to write many books set in different worlds, but in the same Cosmere. These books include series that have already begun (eg Stormlight Archives, Elantris, Mistborn, and others), and some that have not yet…
Shokhet
  • 5,940
  • 2
  • 25
  • 66
9
votes
3 answers

The Torah is written without vowels?

In Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer, Chapter 7 ("The End of Remembering"), he writes: One of the last places where this tradition of recitation still survives is in the reading of the Torah, an ancient handwritten scroll that can take…
abhay mishra
  • 117
  • 1
  • 4
9
votes
1 answer

What does "The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went" mean?

In Reginald on Besetting Sins: The Woman Who Told The Truth, Saki writes And at last the dreadful thing came, as the Woman had foreseen all along that it must; it was one of those paltry little truths with which she harried her waking hours. On a…
TomDot Com
  • 1,207
  • 4
  • 16
9
votes
1 answer

Is there any evidence that Shakespeare ever used a Spanish source for any of his works?

Scholarly editions of Shakespeare's works always discuss real or potential sources for the plots and other aspects of a play or poem. Shakespeare invented very few plots and used sources such as Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives, Arthur…
Tsundoku
  • 44,570
  • 7
  • 95
  • 211
9
votes
2 answers

Does Othello have impostor syndrome, or any other problem because his background is different?

Is there any implication in Shakespeare's text that Othello had impostor syndrome, or any feeling of inadequacy (in love, or another aspect of interpersonal relationships) because his background is different? Something that was made…
Yulia V
  • 335
  • 1
  • 13
9
votes
3 answers

"Too too sullied flesh" in Hamlet. Why twice?

Oh, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew (Hamlet, Act I, Scene II) Why does "too" occur twice? It is one in a series of repetitions which occur in this soliloquy. But what does it mean "too, too…
apg
  • 349
  • 2
  • 11
9
votes
2 answers

What were the ages of Bilbo and Frodo for these six major plot points?

I recently begun re-reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'm over halfway through The Fellowship of the Ring now. In spite of having the story in "fresh memory", I still can't remember the details, or didn't understand them to begin with. I did…
Haddox R.
  • 91
  • 1
  • 3
9
votes
0 answers

Short (possibly children's) story set in Norfolk glorifying the English Countryside

I have been trying to recall a short story for a while now, one which I read in 2009-2010 but is possibly older (it was part of a children's story collection whose name I cannot recollect, although I don't think that the themes discussed in the…
Lt. Commander. Data
  • 41
  • 6
9
votes
1 answer

In the middle part of The Fellowship of the Ring, how did Strider find and interpret that rock message supposedly from Gandalf?

Maybe this is explained later, and if so, please don't mention the resolution. However, if it's never mentioned again, I'd like to hear some reasoning. Basically, Strider leads the hobbits and that mistreated pony to a place where it seems like they…
Hurst
  • 91
  • 2
9
votes
1 answer

Identify a detailed-prose book of Aesop fables

At a school I no longer go to (Sydney, Australia, early 2010s, the book was in English), I read this book in the library that was a collection of Aesop's fables. The author had this very distinctive style that I feel has heavily influenced me in my…
hattie
  • 91
  • 1
9
votes
0 answers

Why is Adam's name completely capitalized in the Good Omens character list?

Before Good Omens has even started, officially, on page xiv in my copy, there's a list of characters. These include... SUPERNATURAL BEINGS God (God) Metatron (The Voice of God) [...] Satan (A Fallen Angel; the Adversary) [...] Crowley (An Angel who…
Mithical
  • 24,015
  • 16
  • 94
  • 184
9
votes
1 answer

What does "invention comes from my pate as birdlime does from frize" mean in "Othello"?

From Othello II.1.125–130: Iago: ... my invention Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frize, It plucks out brains and all. But my muse labours, And thus she is deliver'd: If she be fair and wise, fairness, and wit, The one's for use, the other…
SDRay
  • 161
  • 2
9
votes
1 answer

If I find a book by Nietzsche, how do I know if it's Friedrich's original work, and not work that was edited by his nazi sister, Elisabeth?

Background I've been getting into philosophy lately, and I've been wanting to read some of Nietzsche's work. But history has it that after his mental decline, and subsequent death, his sister became the curator of his works, and edited a lot of it…
Alec
  • 193
  • 5
9
votes
1 answer

Which short stories are falsely attributed to Guy de Maupassant, and why?

Thanks to @GarethRees's sleuthing and editing, I just learned that several French short stories found in the Project Gutenberg version of the "Entire Original Maupassant Short Stories" are in fact not by Maupassant at all, but by other authors and…
Rand al'Thor
  • 72,435
  • 26
  • 236
  • 488
9
votes
4 answers

What does Lady Macbeth mean by "what thou art promised"?

In Macbeth Act I Scene 5, Lady Macbeth says the following: Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be…
Malted_Wheaties
  • 143
  • 1
  • 2
  • 6
1 2 3
…
99 100