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1500 questions
22
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Looking for a poem about the (fictionalized) writing of The Canterbury Tales Prologue
A friend of mine used to quote a poem that told the fictionalized story of Chaucer writing the first lines of the Prologue of The Canterbury Tales:
"Whan that Aprill with his ... ".
When he gets to the word for "showers" he paused and had to…
D Mac
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6 answers
What's the deal with Bilbo being some kind of "burglar"?
I may only be 37 pages into The Hobbit, re-reading it after 20+ years, but several things already confuse me. First of all, and this is what I'm mainly asking about, Bilbo is casually mentioned as some kind of skilled burglar or thief. And the…
Thorin
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Why is Pechorin a hero of our time?
In Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time (Герой нашего времени), the main hero is Grigory Pechorin, a cynical noble army man, an example of superfluous Byronic hero.
The title of the novel has to refer to Pechorin himself - but why? What traits…
Gallifreyan
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How did having a full pot of tea betray the doctor's lowly origins?
Memoires of gedenkschriften van minister Pieter Bas (The memoirs of Minister Pieter Bas) is a satirical biography of a fictional Minister of Education. The book is mostly about the man's youth in the second half of the 19th century. The book was…
Vixen Populi
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22
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How does Shakespeare's iambic pentameter work with Original Pronunciation?
In school, students are often taught about iambic pentameter via Shakespearian examples. These, however, were based on the Received Pronunciation (RP) reading of Shakespeare's works. In reality, Shakespeare used an entirely different pronunciation,…
Plumbing for Ankit
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22
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In the Iliad, why does Homer list every captain involved in the Trojan war?
In book two of the The Iliad (which you can read online), Homer does something that I find strange: he interrupts the story to list the name of every captain involved in the Trojan war:
And now, O Muses, dwellers in the mansions of Olympus, tell…
user111
21
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1 answer
Why was the book Animal Farm banned in non-communist countries?
I understand why it was banned in the USSR, because it's pretty blatant satire of the USSR. It's also still banned in North Korea for the same reason.
But why was it banned in the United Arab Emirates and Kenya and censored in Vietnam?
It was also…
user72
21
votes
2 answers
What is Asimov's joke in "Death of a Foy"?
I recently came upon a short story, Death of a Foy (1980), in the compendium The Winds of Change (1983). In the intro, Asimov states that he was "hardly able to stop laughing", but I just can't seem to get the joke.
In particular, it's a two page…
Joel Harmon
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What does "N. takes M." mean in "Emma"?
In Jane Austen's Emma, when Emma and Mr. Knightley are discussing first names, this exchange happens:
'And cannot you call me "George" now?'
'Impossible!—I never can call you any thing but "Mr Knightley." I will not promise even to equal the…
Mithical
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Understanding political subtexts in the Turing test paper
Alan Turing's article "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (which you can read online) is commonly interpreted as introducing the Turing test. Briefly, the Turing test is when you have two computer terminals, one controlled by a human in different…
user111
21
votes
6 answers
227 days in Life of Pi, coincidence or symbolical?
I'm wondering whether it is known whether the 227 days in Life of Pi symbolical is for pi or that the symbolism I see (as a mathematician :)) is pure coincidence.
I think that it is symbolic for pi because pi ~ 22/7, which is quite well-known.
wythagoras
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Why Did Doyle Choose 221B Baker Street?
221B Baker Street. One of the most famous addresses in literature. But why?
Was there any reason Sir Arthur Conan Doyle chose this particular address as the residence of his famous protagonist? Did he have any links to that part of London?
EDIT:…
Beastly Gerbil
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21
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Did T.S. Eliot really plagiarize in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"?
I've been trying to do research to confirm my English teacher's claim that T. S. Eliot plagiarized works by Jules Laforgue, Henri Bergson, and Andrew Marvell in his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". Unfortunately, I haven't been able to…
Beth Hays
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Is the treatment of Jar Jar Binks in Aftermath: Empire's End a reflection of audience treatment?
In one of the Interlude scenes in the book Star Wars Aftermath: Empire's End, a child interacts with Jar Jar Binks, and gives more details about how the adults don't like him due to their beliefs that he helped the Empire come into being. However,…
CBredlow
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When and why did "No man is an island" start being regarded as a poem?
John Donne's "Meditation XVII" from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624) includes the following well-known passage:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by…
verbose
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