The Reading Room

12:00 AM

There are several tags at ELU that we could use as a feed here besides literature. For example, poetic-devices. But I'll spread out adding them so as not to overwhelm this room.

Mithical

6:33 AM

@verbose you can add them all as part of the same feed

verbose

@Mithical oh yeah I suppose I could/should

good point

thanks!

Feeds

6:46 AM

0

Q: In Lord Byron's "Don Juan," what was the lead character "half-smother'd" by?

This would be the character's first adventure. Julia, a married woman, became his mistress. Her husband, Don Alfonso, was told that she was cheating on him and ran into the bedroom, accompanied by servants, in order to surprise her and her lover. Anticipating this, Julia asked her maid to lie in ...

CowperKettle

7:03 AM

My "God-forgive-me" mug, like in the "Far from the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy

> "“Come, shepherd, and drink. ’Tis gape and swaller with us—a drap of sommit, but not of much account,” said the maltster, removing from the fire his eyes, which were vermilion-red and bleared by gazing into it for so many years. “Take up the God-forgive-me, Jacob. See if ’tis warm, Jacob.”
Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a two-handled tall mug standing in the ashes, cracked and charred with heat: it was rather furred with extraneous matter about the outside, especially in the crevices of the handles, the innermost curves of which may not have seen daylight for several years…

verbose

What does the mug say? on the outside and the inside?

CowperKettle

))

It says "don't overload me with work" in vernacular phraselogisms

verbose

> Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Mithical

CowperKettle

"If you mount me (as a horse), you'll get off exactly on the spot you started" (on the outside of the mug)

Mithical

7:14 AM

I assumed there must be some idiom that Google Translate wasn't getting...

verbose

oh I didn't realize Google Translate worked on images ....

CowperKettle

"Где сядешь, там и слезешь"

verbose

TIL

CowperKettle

Multitran's translations for this idiom: multitran.com/…

Yes, Google translates it as sit and this is correct, but here it means "mount" as a rider mounts a horse.

verbose

The noiseless tenor of Gray's poem contrasts with some Wagnerian chaps I know

CowperKettle

7:23 AM

> Though poor the peasant’s hut, his feasts though small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all;
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.

(Introductory to Switzerland, by Oliver Goldsmith)

verbose

I wonder whether there has been anyone else like Goldsmith, who wrote a very successful novel (The Vicar of Wakefield), poem ("The Deserted Village"), and play (She Stoops to Conquer). Offhand I can't think of anyone

Gareth Rees

11:39 AM

@verbose Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray; The Ballad of Reading Gaol; The Importance of Being Earnest

Bookworm

1:22 PM

0

Q: In Lord Byron's "Don Juan," what was the lead character "half-smother'd" by?

This would be the character's first adventure. Julia, a married woman, became his mistress. Her husband, Don Alfonso, was told that she was cheating on him and ran into the bedroom, accompanied by servants, in order to surprise her and her lover. Anticipating this, Julia asked her maid to lie in ...

meaning

Gareth Rees

5:26 PM

@verbose Goethe: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers; "Der Zauberlehrling"; Faust. But I agree, there are few examples of excellence in all three forms.

Bookworm

7:25 PM

0

Q: What is the connection between "Holy Thursday" from Songs of Experience and the actual day?

William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience includes two poems entitled "Holy Thursday", one from Innocence and one from Experience. The one from Innocence opens with the line: ’Twas on a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, which makes its setting clear. However, the one from Exper...

religion william-blake songs-of-experience

Tsundoku

7:40 PM

@verbose Hugo Claus: Het verdriet van België (novel), Suiker (play), Oostakkerse gedichten (poems).

@verbose Victor Hugo: Notre-Dame de Paris, Les Misérables (novels), Hernani, Cromwell (plays), Les Châtiments (poetry).

Ankit Sharma

@Tsundoku What? I am sure my husband had no issues with it, as he bought ebooks from India mostly and read them with no issues in Canada.

Mithical

7:56 PM

@AnkitSharma Wait, when did the upgrade to "husband" happen? :O A (belated?) congratulations!

Ankit Sharma

@Mithical Next month is our first anniversary. Thanks

Mithical

So you're in Canada now?

Ankit Sharma

I did mention a few times in the screening room I guess but not seen you there much either

@Mithical yes, moved here got married and now searching job day and night lol

Mithical

@AnkitSharma Ah, yeah, I removed it from my favorite rooms when I cut back on how much time I was spending on SE, so I guess I missed it.

@AnkitSharma I feel that. Hopefully something will turn up soon :) What kind of gig are you looking for?

Ankit Sharma

@Mithical I wanted to stay in the same domain so database-related jobs only but no avail yet

Transcript for