The ‘What topics can I ask about here?’ section in the Help Centre currently apologises for being unable to say what is on topic: Unfortunately, we haven't been around for that long and therefore don't have an authoritative definition of what is and what isn't on-topic. Philosophers have spen...

Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles begins with the epigraph ... Poor wounded name! My bosom as a bed Shall lodge thee.—W. Shakespeare. The source of this quote is one of Shakespeare's lesser known plays, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I Scene II. The context is Julia speakin...

Marianne Moore’s poem ‘Four Quartz Crystal Clocks’ (1940) was first published in The Kenyon Review 2:3, pp. 284–285, and collected in What Are Years (1941). Here's the first stanza (of seven): There are four vibrators, the world’s exactest clocks;     and these quartz time-pieces that tell ...