The Reading Room

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1:07 AM

Would it be acceptable to answer this question by focusing only on one of the poems listed? Or would I have to address both poems and/or every poem Frost has written? (The last one seems obviously Too Broad, but I wonder about the middle option)

(oop, three poems, missed the middle one)

1 hour later…

Bookworm

2:18 AM

Q: Does "Great Expectations" refer to the sport of cricket, in the scene of Joe meeting Pip in London?

In Great Expectations, the scene of Joe meeting Pip in London narrates: “I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily expressive to my mind of some architecture that I know) into a perfect Chorus, but for his attention being providentially attracted by his hat, which was topplin...

6 hours later…

Tsundoku

7:49 AM

I don't understand the "opinion-based" flag on How does Charles Lamb’s working in East India Company affect his writing themes? Any answer would need to be based on facts derived from (a) Lamb's biography and (b) his essays.

@bobble I've been there, too. Be careful, it's a bottomless rabbit hole. Or rather, a "topless" tower of books.

Rand al'Thor

I thought bobble's Watership Down answer was the bottomless rabbit hole.

@Tsundoku Some of The 95 have been flagged for closure several times over the months.

Tsundoku

... out of which we had to flee when it was drowned in water?

I wonder if "opinion-based" is sometimes used as shorthand for "requires much more research than I am willing to do".

@bobble Apparently I had not looked very carefully at that question. I don't know Frost's work very well and I'm unfamiliar with his biography, but I think it would still be better to ask about each poem separately. Since the OP is not very likely to come back, nobody will blame you for self-answering a question about just one of these poems.

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku It can be hard for newcomers to a topic to know the difference between "can't be answered" and "can't be answered without a lot of research".

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor True, but not being able to judge that is a poor reason for flagging a question as opinion-based.

Rand al'Thor

On SFF, sometimes people vote to close questions because they think there is no answer given in "canon". It comes up on meta every so often, but the conclusion is always that "answer unknown" is a perfectly fine answer and doesn't make the question closeworthy.

Tsundoku

8:06 AM

But Literature SE is to a much larger extent about works and authors that have been discussed by scholars. Lamb is one such author. So people shouldn't think too quickly that a question can't be answered; there may be literature about it.

Tsundoku

8:20 AM

I have made it more obvious that Did those things really happen to Robert Frost? is about three different poems and added links to the complete text of each poem. To be honest, I find that question too broad, since the OP does not define a connection between the poems.

Bookworm

8:43 AM

Q: meaning of " I've made my reputation as a strong woman. I reckon I’ve earned the right to a..."

This passage is from The Children's Bach by Helen Garner Vicki spent an hour getting herself ready. She tied a diaphanous scarf round her head, stuck a yellow rose in it, and put a lot of makeup on her flat, smooth, pale face. She looked striking, and flustered because of the lipstick she had ru...

meaning the-childrens-bach helen-garner

4 hours later…

Peter Shor

12:40 PM

The connection between the Frost poems seems fairly obvious to me. He's taken a commonplace event and somehow imbued it with deep poetic significance (Mending Wall is another poem where he's done that.)

But I don't really understand the question the OP's asking. It can't be: did Robert Frost really pick apples? and did he really walk though the woods in autumn? because the answer to these questions is obviously "yes".

I've added a comment asking the OP to clarify his question (which I think is: "did the deep poetic significance Robert Frost imbued these events with come to him during the event or afterwards?") but given that it's been six months since the question was asked, I'm not at all sure we'll get an answer.

1 hour later…

bobble

1:45 PM

@Tsundoku Some preliminary research found letters/essays which are agreed upon to show the inspiration for two of the poems; that's what I assumed the question was asking about.

bobble

2:03 PM

@Tsundoku I may split two poems off into self-answered inspiration questions. Considering.

bobble

2:28 PM

@Tsundoku I'm not saying that Greg LeMond is an author. He's not, and describing him that way would be wrong. I'm saying that it is accepted to say that "X authored a quote*" or "The author of the quote is X", at least to me, in Merriam-Webster's sense 2a: "one that originates or creates something"

1 hour later…

Spagirl

3:56 PM

@Tsundoku he's the co-author of at least two books, The Science of Fitness: Power, Performance, and Endurance and Greg LeMond's Complete Book of Bicycling. Not a genre that perhaps fits well with 'literature' but he has published works to his name.

5 hours later…

Bookworm

8:53 PM

Q: Does Auden's poem 'The Model' refer to any particular painting?

I re-read 'The Model' by W H Auden earlier today, and I was struck by how good it is. I've venerated Auden since I was sixteen, but I hadn't appreciated this poem properly until now. I find myself fascinated by the question of whether Auden had a specific painting in mind while writing this poem....

poetry wystan-hugh-auden

Eng Lit Learner

9:39 PM

Q: Meaning of The other right and back looping

The other day I was watching the famous sci-fi series "The Flash". I had to think on two comments. The meaning is not clear to me. I describe the scene so that it will easy for the responder to answer my question. So, character1 instructed character2 about direction. Character1 said Turn right. B...