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7
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What does "toby" mean, in London slang of Orwell's time?
In the George Orwell poem "A Dressed Man and a Naked Man", two men are haggling for the clothes of one of them (the other is naked). After a little research into the pounds/shillings/pence system for the terms I'd forgotten, I figured out the…
Rand al'Thor
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7
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1 answer
Young adult fiction book: written from a teen boy's perspective about school, sex and Shakespeare
I would really appreciate some help over here. Even though it sounds immature, I loved it when I was a sophomore.
Here's everything I can give you to help me: I read this book in 2016. It was medium sized. I read this at a public library in the…
Neo Darwin
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7
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How is Daisy Buchanan from "The Great Gatsby" a controversial character?
I have to gather a list of some controversial characters in English Literature. As a result, I came up with a small list. A few characters were suggested by my friends, but one I found a bit confusing.
How is Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby a…
Shahnewaz
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7
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What do the "mirror" and the "lake" represent in "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath?
In "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath, the speaker in the poem says,
Now I am a lake.
But, also at times implies that the speaker is a mirror. However, since an object can not both be a mirror and a lake, this leads me to believe that they are instead a…
Benjamin
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7
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Why is "...Then fall, Caesar" always left out when talking about Caesar's last words?
From this link,
DECIUS BRUTUS: Great Caesar,
CAESAR: Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?
CASCAL: Speak, hands for me!
CASCA first, then the other Conspirators and BRUTUS stab CAESAR
CAESAR: Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar.
Dies
For some reason, the…
Aryaman
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7
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5 answers
Son of Adam but not Eve? Daughter of Eve but not Adam?
Throughout The Chronicles of Narnia the humans are referred to as "Son of Adam" for a male, and "Daughter of Eve" for a female. I'm assuming that the characters in Narnia don't think that females only descend from a female but not a male, and males…
Alex
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7
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1 answer
Meaning of sentence from "A Tale of Two Cities"
Reins and whip and coachman and guard, however, in combination, had read that article of war which forbade a purpose otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some brute animals are endued with Reason; and the team had capitulated and…
SDRay
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7
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0 answers
Is there a full copy of the original manuscript of "Mantiq al-Tayr" (The Conference of the Birds) by Attar of Nishapur?
I have came across notes about "The Conference of the Birds", and I have seen images of the cover of the manuscript, as well as random pages from it, as can be seen from the Wikipedia entry.
As this manuscript is about 841 years old I would have…
KingsInnerSoul
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7
votes
1 answer
What did Lorca mean by ‘crocodiles’ in his poem ‘The King of Harlem’?
The poet Federico García Lorca, when he was studying at Colombia University visited Harlem with a friend of his, Nella Larsen, a black novelist. It made a tremendous impression upon him and its influence is visible in some of the poems he wrote…
Mozibur Ullah
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7
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1 answer
What is a "proem", and why was this word used in the translation of the Kalevala?
The contents of Crawford's translation of the Kalevala begin, after the frontmatter that's not part of the original text, with something called a "Proem". Here it is.
Obvious question: what is a proem? It almost looks like a typo for "poem", but…
Rand al'Thor
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7
votes
1 answer
Fight Club book editions and different text passages
I found out that there are different editions of Fight Club that contain different text passages. I cannot find any page that would describe these differences and I don't know which version is the original one.
Example of book differences (one of…
HPCS
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7
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2 answers
Is Caliban of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" based on a real life character?
In the book Over the Edge of the World the author Laurence Bergreen has described Ferdinand Magellan's daring circumnavigation of the globe in the sixteenth century was a three-year odyssey filled with sex, violence, and amazing adventure. The book…
Suresh Ramaswamy
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7
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What does "Burning" symbolize in "Burning the Old Year"?
In Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye, Nye refers to "notes", "lists", and "letters" as things that can be burned. From reading this poem, I interpret the theme to be the short time for which memories last and about how all of the papers you…
Benjamin
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7
votes
3 answers
What Kanji startles Otoko so much?
As I was fighting through the first page of Chapter 7 of Beauty and Sadness (see Dramatis Personae of Beauty and Sadness), I stumbled upon a sentence that is hard to understand. Since I read it in German, I do a self-translation to English…
Trish
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7
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2 answers
Who wrote the poem starting "'Tis true my form is something odd"?
I saw a poem on my friend's desktop background on his laptop, and took a screenshot of it because I thought it was cool. In fact, it was a poem.
Does anybody know who wrote it, or where it is from?
Tis true my form is something odd,
But blaming…
Mr Pie
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