The Reading Room

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Gallifreyan

5:49 AM

@Randal'Thor Thank you! Turns out there's even a shiny badge!

9 hours later…

Librarian

3:16 PM

Q: Best Questions & Answers from 2nd Quarter of 2019

Here's the latest installment in what's now becoming a grand old tradition of gathering some particularly good Literature Q&A in order to get some easily available links to show off to people. Since Literature has a community-run Twitter account, one use for this post will be to gather links for...

1 hour later…

Bookworm

4:25 PM

Q: Did William Shakespeare hide things in his writings?

My apologies if this is the wrong Q&A site to ask the following question. Feel free to correct me if I am mistaken. I was reading Shakespeare's third sonnet, and I noticed something funny. I am going to put in bold all the capital letters in the sonnet itself. Sonnet III When fo...

poetry

Rand al'Thor

4:50 PM

@Bookworm william-shakespeare tag badge incoming for @ChristopheStrobbe shortly ...

Bookworm

5:25 PM

Q: Was the N.I.C.E. director modelled on H. G. Wells?

Wikipedia claims that the character of Horace Jules in C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength - ostensibly the Director and boss of the N.I.C.E. organisation, in reality a figurehead manipulated by those truly in the know - was in part a caricature of H. G. Wells However, the reference for th...

character-analysis c-s-lewis the-space-trilogy h-g-wells

Bookworm

5:45 PM

Q: Was Edmund in the Narnia series loosely related to Edmund in King Lear?

In King Lear, Edmund, resentful of his inferior status to his older brother, betrays his family and frames his brother as a traitor. This strikes me as not being at all unlike what Edmund does in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Is there any evidence of an inspiration, or is the resemblance...

inspiration c-s-lewis the-chronicles-of-narnia king-lear william-shakespere

Christophe Strobbe

6:24 PM

@Randal'Thor Yep, Shakespeare hid a very important message in his work, namely that he was actually Christopher Marlowe. Or was it Edward de Vere? Or Bacon? Or Queen Elisabeth? I always get confused.

Those theories about hidden messages in Shakespeare's works remind me of Cornelis De Jager's cyclosophy, a parody on pseudoscientific belief in numerology.

2 hours later…

Rand al'Thor

8:28 PM

@Bookworm Oh good lord, this has gone HNQ.

The current answers are OK but not great. Someone should really post a more exemplary one - maybe @ChristopheStrobbe?

3 hours later…

North

11:15 PM

I'm surprised - how come there isn't a comic/cartoon se?

Does it fall under scifi for comic books and literature for cartoon strips?

Bookworm

11:26 PM

Q: Why does Linus say "I think you finished it" to Sally in this Sunday strip?

So in December 22nd, 1985, Charles Schulz made this following Christmas themed Sunday panel featuring Linus and Sally. Linus is reading Sally the second chapter of the Book of Luke (from the Bible), and makes a remark about how King Augustus is near-forgotten while Jesus has an entire holiday ded...