The Reading Room

Alex

12:47 AM

in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Apr 14 '19 at 17:02, by Alex

That's pretty scary. I definitely won't be editing more than five posts now.

Alex

1:02 AM

I wonder if this is a bug:

Bookworm

1:15 AM

0

Q: What is so special about a fruit being in season for eight days?

In chapter Four of The Time Machine, the Time Traveller states: But the fruits were very delightful; one, in particular, that seemed to be in season all the time I was there — a floury thing in a three-sided husk — was especially good, and I made it my staple. However, earlier in Chapter Two he...

Bookworm

8:05 AM

0

Q: Meaning of "he’d go down between sets and find her"

This passage is from The Children's Bach by Helen Garner They stopped at the gate lounge. The door opened. ‘Here she comes,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Which one is she?’ said Dexter. The man walking behind Vicki was talking to his friend, he had a faint stammer, not much more than a hesitation. ‘ ’Mazing...

meaning the-childrens-bach helen-garner

Rand al'Thor

8:34 AM

@Alex I really do think that Time Machine paper would be right up your street, given the kind of questions you post here and the kind of answers you post on SFF.

verbose

8:52 AM

@Randal'Thor I am having trouble making this work. The page doesn't load and all I see is a blank page. Either one has to be a mod to see this or my browser's ad blockers, privacy tools, etc. won't let the page load. Eh, too bad

Rand al'Thor

@verbose The URL itself is a blank page, but when you "view source" you can see the data there.

verbose

@Randal'Thor oic. yep, that works. interesting

@Randal'Thor I'm not sure about "behind the wind." It seems to be a common phrase rather than a quote. I assume that a quote has a single identifiable source rather than "it's a common phrase among Arabian sailors." I wouldn't argue if someone put a quote-source tag on there but I'd not put one there myself.

Rand al'Thor

@verbose I found out about it thanks to Glorfindel's HNQ challenge.

verbose

@Randal'Thor agreed

@Randal'Thor ah

Rand al'Thor

@verbose Fair enough.

verbose

9:06 AM

@Randal'Thor I think because the asker isn't sure whether there are any definite origins, it should have both oral-tradition and textual-history. Asking where an entire work originated is always a textual history question. Also, the asker specifies "Victorian era" so I assume he's looking for a printed source.

@Randal'Thor Probably. Added.

@Randal'Thor It's correctly tagged. Formal realism, according to Watt (or rather, according to the asker's presentation of Watt), was a historical development. Theory isn't tied to historical developments.

@Randal'Thor yeah, it's definitely not history-of-literature and if it belongs here at all, it should be oral-tradition. Honestly I don't know why ELU would say it belongs here, but we've established they're arrogant snobs.

@Randal'Thor with due deference to @Mithical, I don't think it needs intertextuality. Intertextuality is about the relationship between texts: how one text affects the other's meaning or construction. Asking about the influence of Jane Eyre on Tess would be an intertextuality question; asking how reading one of those texts shapes the reader's response to the other would be another. But comparing how those independent texts portray women is not intertextuality.

'course I don't think it needs history-of-literature either. It's not about literary themes, ideas, or movements. historical-context would make more sense. But having no tags other than the authors and works is fine too.

@Randal'Thor I seem to remember saying on here that we should replace narrator with point-of-view because the latter is the technical term. I said we should make the former a synonym of the latter. We had a bit of discussion Then someone (maybe @Tsundoku) said "ask a meta question" and I never got around to it. Oh well. Yeah, it definitely needs a tag like that

@Randal'Thor Carl Jung at least needs the author and work tags. Agree it's not history-of-literature. I'd be okay with textual-history though it's not a perfect fit. I think love for the soul is history-of-literature. It's about the neo-platonist / Petrarchan / courtly love tradition of the middle ages and Renaissance.

@Randal'Thor except those two do need history-of-literature removed

@Randal'Thor yes, and not history-of-literature

@Randal'Thor well, "what manuscripts survive for this specific Renaissance work?" would definitely be a textual-history question. So this is one too. I don't see how expanding that to all surviving Renaissance mss. makes it not a textual-history question? And it's definitely not a history-of-literature question

@bobble ah. True.

@Alex looks okay to me; what do you suspect is buggy?

Tsundoku

9:55 AM

@verbose narrator is also a technical term.

At some point, we had a discussion about perspecive and narrator:

Feb 17 at 17:08, by Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor The way both wiki excerpts are worded, that makes them almost undistinguishable. It is possible to make some sort of distinction by pointing out that perspective is just about the perspective as such, while narrator is broader and is (also) about, e.g. the narrator's opinions, hidden agenda, reliability, etc. The question is whether we can expect users to choose the right tag.

The downside to narrator is that this term is not used to describe the point of view from which lyric poetry is written.

verbose

@Tsundoku yes, that would be persona or speaker. But the same is true for point-of-view; it doesn't apply to lyric poetry

Tsundoku

I would use poetic-speaker to reduce the risk of misuse of speaker.

The question Why did Tennyson write “The Brook” from the brook's first-person perspective? currently has the narrator tag. Wouldn't point-of-view work here? Or would poetic-voice be better?

verbose

@Tsundoku 🔊

@Tsundoku you're right, point-of-view would work there

Bookworm

10:55 AM

0

Q: What is the figure of speech used here?

What is the figure of speech used in these lines taken from the Simon Armitage poem "Cataract Operation"? the olé of a crimson towel. the cancan of a ra ra skirt, the monkey business of a shirt pegged only by its sleeve, the cheerio of a handkerchief Also, what do the above lines mean?

poetry terminology interpretation

verbose

11:17 AM

Ahmed Samir just crossed 3,000 rep.

verbose

11:27 AM

@Randal'Thor that's impressive

New Topic Challenge Suggestion

0

A: New Literature SE Topic Challenge Suggestions Thread

Medieval Arthurian Literature From Gildas to Malory, many writers in the sixth through the 15th centuries shaped the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Arthurian stories were written in a wide range of languages: Latin (Historia Regum Brittaniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth) Mi...

verbose

That's an interesting topic if I do say so myself.

Rand al'Thor

@verbose Yeah, if not for the OP's addendum, I probably would've suggested ELU for that question. That site is full of "I have this proverb in my native language, what would it be in English?" questions. Goodness knows why ELU sent that one here. Anyway, retagged.

verbose

@Bookworm HNQ

Rand al'Thor

@verbose Fair. It's still not history-of-literature to compare two works with each other, though, right?

Oh yep, you answered that in the next message.

verbose

11:37 AM

@Randal'Thor yeah i ran out of room in the first one

Rand al'Thor

@verbose OK.

Alex

@Randal'Thor Very interesting, thanks.

b_jonas

@Tsundoku A reasonable worry, but literature.stackexchange.com/q/5334/139 already has five tags, so I couldn't add speaker

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku I remembered that we'd discussed synonymising something with narrator, but couldn't remember what it was. I'll go ahead and merge perspective then.

(If narrator gets merged or renamed later, the synonym will copy over to the new tag, I think.)

verbose

@b_jonas see now this one could also qualify for intertexuality I think, though of course there's no room

b_jonas

11:44 AM

@verbose Does that apply to all questions with allusions?

Rand al'Thor

Is allusions a subset of intertextuality? Not, because allusions could be to something other than another work of literature, right?

From an academic-literature point of view, are we misusing intertextuality by applying it to questions like "are these different fantasy stories set in the same universe"?

b_jonas

@Randal'Thor Well yes, they can be references to a video game or a TV show as in scifi.stackexchange.com/q/157608/4918

Alex

@verbose It clearly knows that there is an answer in that tag, as the necessary implication of “50% unanswered” is that 50% is answered. Yet the top answerers section is blank.

verbose

@Randal'Thor Yeah I think that's correct. I guess strictly speaking any allusion in a literary work to another literary work counts as intertextuality but I think it makes sense to restrict our tag to works where the influence is more pervasive than a single allusion

Rand al'Thor

@Alex That page is cached, updating once a day I think. Maybe some parts of it more heavily cached than others.

verbose

11:46 AM

@Randal'Thor probably yes, unless the stories are by different authors

Alex

I see now that it does list me in the top answerers section, so apparently the top answerers section takes longer to update than the top askers section.

verbose

@Alex I assumed the answer wasn't upvoted. I guess I was wrong

Alex

It was upvoted, and it was posted mere minutes after the question.

Plus, it already registered two questions, the latter of which was posted almost a full day after the first answer.

verbose

@b_jonas using an expansive definition of "text" I think those would qualify ...

Rand al'Thor

@bobble has matched Standback in rep, and reached a full row above @PrinceNorthLæraðr in the rep leagues.

b_jonas

11:49 AM

@verbose That's what I thought about oral-traditions and textual-history. (Plus that if you really want specifically oral traditions, sometimes it's better to ask on Mythology SE.)

Rand al'Thor

mutters about closing Mythology & Folklore as a duplicate of Literature

verbose

@Randal'Thor let's do it. Let's stage a coup

b_jonas

That's what's more or less happening, because so few people are asking new questions there instead of here.

We're effectively absorbing that site.

verbose

The first step would be to get you and @Tsundoku to become mods there and then announce one day that the sites are merged

Someone should infiltrate the chat groups of Mythology and Hinduism to tell them about the Mahabharata topic challenge. I'm serial. I nominate @bobble

Alex

If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve.

@Randal'Thor Is Mythology & Folklore limited to literary mythology?

verbose

11:58 AM

@Alex what other kind is there?

Alex

Oral?

verbose

Ah.

Alex

Though I suppose most of those would have been written down by now.

I’ve only ever asked one question there, and I suppose it would have been on topic here as well.

verbose

Are urban legends on-topic for Mythology SE?

I mean I can see an argument for keeping the two separate, actually. I'd not want to deal with "What is the origin of the story of alligators in NYC sewers?" on this site.

Alex

You can create your own urban legend and then post questions about it.

Like those who write their own fanfiction and ask about it on Science Fiction & Fantasy.

verbose

12:03 PM

@Alex and self-answer!

I could be a legend in my own lunchtime!

b_jonas

12:27 PM

@verbose But you do want to deal with many-foot willies?

2

verbose

@b_jonas I'd say I plead the fifth, but I'm not sure Hungary respects that plea

Rand al'Thor

@verbose It did happen with two other SE sites once: they merged the sites and merged the mod teams, so there was a beta site with like six mods or something. Maybe Sound Design or Video Production, I don't remember.

@Alex Is that a quote from somewhere?

@Alex oral-tradition is on-topic here too.

Alex

:57560982 I thought it was from William T. Sherman.

Rand al'Thor

Ah.

verbose

@Alex yep you're right, LBJ said something similar: see here

Alex

12:39 PM

In the context of people wanting him for president of the United States after his generalship in the Civil War.

Rand al'Thor

> In June 2004, the former Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond said, in response to questions about whether he would seek the leadership again, that “if nominated I’ll decline. If drafted I’ll defer. And if elected I’ll resign”. A month later, he changed his mind and stood for the leadership, later becoming the First Minister of Scotland.

Sounds fishy.

But so do all the First Ministers of Scotland.

verbose

@Randal'Thor is that a pun on Salmon?

Alex

No, Scots (one “t” or two?) are just fishy.

Rand al'Thor

@verbose And Sturgeon.

verbose

@Randal'Thor ah

Tsundoku

1:59 PM

@Randal'Thor I discussed this in this answer about hypotext, intertext and allusion. So allusion can be treated as a type of intertextuality.

@b_jonas The mere thought gives me the willies.

in The Pantheon, Feb 17 at 8:12, by b_jonas

@TomSol How to get the activity up? Bankrupt Literature SE so users can't post all their mythology and folklore questions there anymore.

Prince North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Hehe

Tsundoku

There are still a few leftovers on the new tags page. (Hint, hint.)

Prince North Læraðr

2:47 PM

I don't do tags for like a month and this is what happens? :P

Mithical

Slacker.

Prince North Læraðr

Apologies for like not having a life over the last month :P

Tsundoku

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Is Frank L. Baum a distant relative of yours?

Prince North Læraðr

Yeah, actually. He's my... third cousin, twice removed? We don't share much in common though

Rand al'Thor

What about Frank N. Stein?

Tsundoku

2:52 PM

@Randal'Thor Baum is German for tree...

Prince North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Meh, never heard of him :P

Bookworm

0

Q: How did the Cutty Wren come to be the national anthem of Tristan da Cunha?

The Cutty Wren, a traditional English folk song, is the "territorial song" (like national anthem for a British Overseas Territory?) of Tristan da Cunha, one of the remotest islands on earth with around 250 inhabitants. Why is this? Was there a cultural connection between this particular song and ...

cultural-context oral-tradition

bobble

4:03 PM

@meta-se-users - is this a known bug? When I try to edit a post anonymously, but don't bypass the 6-char limit, and then try to submit, there is no error message. (This has been happening for a while but I've been too lazy to check)

Mithical

Seems vaguely familiar but I'm not 100% sure

bobble

this search didn't turn up any hits, but that's not a guarantee since perhaps different words were used

Bookworm

4:58 PM

0

Q: In, "on the face of it" by susan hill, there is a quote "gate is always open" whereas at the end, derry opens the gate. WHat can that mean/signify?

http://www.ncert.nic.in/ncerts/l/levt106.pdf Above is the link to the text. Lamb says that gate is always open and he does not like closing things [Dialogues of scene 1]. But, why Derry opens the gate panting (Scene 3) ?

short-stories susan-hill

Bookworm

9:25 PM

0

Q: Can "access and excess" be antonyms in this context?

In The Markenmore Mystery (1922) by J. S. Fletcher, Blick, a detective-sergeant, was thinking about the way by which someone had entered and left Markenmore district. Firstly he studied the railways and trains, and then he turned to studying the roads and motor-cars. And on turning to his time-t...

meaning the-markenmore-mystery j.s.fletcher

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