The Reading Room

Bookworm

01:35

0

I am reading Oscar Wilde and it uses the phrase. I have seen it in other older texts. What does it mean? Here is a copy of the passage. The phrase is bolded. And there was silence in the house of Judgment, and the Man came naked before God. And God opened the Book of the Life of the Man. And God ...

Bookworm

05:20

1

Q: What exactly does Murasaki Shikibu say about The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter?

Donald Keene comments: [Murasaki Shikibu] dismissed as old-fashioned the kind of unreality present in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter—the birth of a little girl inside a stalk of bamboo, or Kaguyahime’s ability to vanish at will—and she looked down on other early works that relied on the supernatu...

japanese-literature murasaki-shikibu the-tale-of-genji

0

Q: How was Jon Meacham able to complete his biography of John Lewis so quickly?

Congressman John Lewis, a noted American civil rights activist and politician, passed away on July 17, 2020. Jon Meacham wrote a biography of him that was published on August 25, slightly over a month afterwards, and only 6 months after the February 18 publication of The Hope of Glory. How was he...

biography jon-meacham

user185131

06:58

I'm not sure what to consider as the outcome of the voting on my Meta question... Is it alright to make a new post where comment templates can be compiled?

user185131

4

Q: Is there a list of comment templates available?

I have often seen our moderators leave detailed and helpful comments, usually to new users. Some examples from the front page right now: Hi and welcome to Literature Stack Exchange. I have noticed that somebody has downvoted your question and that is not a pleasant first experience. The reason w...

discussion comments

Rand al'Thor

09:22

@Tsundoku Congratulations. I guess that means you're approaching your second Socratic badge, since you spread out your questions more than EJoshuaS who also has nearly 200.

@Tsundoku I think the OP's claim that it's relevant to literary theory is good enough to reopen. Even if the answer ends up proving that it's actually nothing to do with literary theory, the question itself (independent of knowledge that could belong in answers) at least seems on-topic. Eddie Kal is right that part of it is unnecessarily inflammatory (I suspect more trying to drag eyeballs than to be outright offensive or trolling), but that can be edited out or toned down.

Based on the first few comments, my feeling is that it was a little quick to be mod-closed, and that we can mod-reopen it exactly once then let the community decide (if it gathers five close votes after that, fine). But I'll wait to hear back from you before pressing any buttons :-)

Bookworm

0

Q: Identify a story about the kid who waves at the train

I learned of a story in my high school time(sometime during year 2000-2002) as part of the English textbox. The story is about two men having a conversation in a train, one is a disabled man who lost his wife during delivery(or something similar) and hence doesn't like kids, the other is a father...

story-identification short-stories

b_jonas

10:52

Whoa, they changed the interface of Project Gutenberg

Luckily the author index, which is what I use the most often, is still there.

Bookworm

12:27

0

Q: What inspired the title of "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?"?

Why Didn't They Ask Evans? is a novel by Agatha Christie. In the story, a dying man's last words "Why didn't they ask Evans?" inspires an amateur detective investigation, in which ultimately I was told once that the title of this story was inspired by a phrase Agatha Christie overheard, "why did...

inspiration title agatha-christie why-didnt-they-ask-evans

Rand al'Thor

13:34

0

A: Guidelines for migration from Science Fiction & Fantasy

I don't think we need to overthink this. Literature doesn't have many restrictive policies on what kinds of questions are welcomed; here's a few key points which might come to mind when thinking about migration: We don't take questions asking for recommendations or for lists of works satisfying ...

^ I've posted an answer listing (IMO) some of the most important things to know for people considering migration from Science Fiction & Fantasy. Anything I should add or remove in that answer?

While composing that answer, I found a couple of other questions I'd like to tag faq: Should recommendation questions be on-topic? (since our only custom close reason is based on this) and Policy on questions based on homework or tests (this comes up sooo often in comments and discussions, probably one of the meta posts I most frequently link to here).

Bookworm

14:07

0

Q: Understanding the first dialogue of Archbishop Thomas Becket involving antitheses

In Murder in Cathedral by T.S. Eliot, when Archbishop Thomas Becket returns from France, and sees the second priest scolding the women of Chorus, he says Peace. And let them be, in their exaltation. They speak better than they know, and beyond your understanding. They know and do not know, what ...

meaning t-s-eliot murder-in-the-cathedral

Tsundoku

14:31

@Randal'Thor Here are my reasons for not reopening that question: (1) It makes no distinction between Critical Theory, i.e. theory developed by the Frankfurt School, and Cultural Marxism, which is a (conspiracy) theory about the Frankfurt School. The OP should decide which of these two theories the question is about. (2) Cultural Marxism, as I see it is not on topic; its relevance to literature has not been demonstrated by anyone involved in this discussion. (...)

@Randal'Thor (3) Critical Theory as such is a social theory, not a literary theory. It may have influenced literary theory, but the question does not ask about that influence; it asks about the social theory.

People here should not be hoodwinked into believing that "Cultural Marxism" is a synonym for or a subset of Marxist literary theory.

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku For (1), it might be that the OP is not informed enough to understand the difference, and making that distinction could belong in an answer. Since the question says "what is Cultural Marxism/Critical theory?", referring to the two as if they're almost the same, an answer could explain that they're different, and maybe that one of them relates to literature but the other doesn't.

I think I'm going to attempt a massive edit and see what you think after that.

Tsundoku

14:54

OK.

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku Edited. I noticed that the Wikipedia page on the Frankfurt School has a big section on the "cultural Marxism" theory, saying that they're actually about "critical theory" instead, while the Wikipedia page on critical theory calls it "Western-Marxist" and says (with a [citation needed] note) that it has origins in literary criticism. So [cont]

[cont] giving the OP the benefit of the doubt, I can sort of see a thread connecting this question together: what is "critical theory", why is it called "cultural Marxism", and how did it emerge from literary theory?

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor (1) Critical Marxism is the "theory" that Critical Theory has been used with the intent "to undermine and destroy Western culture and values". (2) What is the basis for the claim that critical theory is rooted in literary criticism? I am no expert on social theory but I have read several books on literary theory, none of which even mention Critical Theory.

Anyway, I'll take a look at the edits.

Rand al'Thor

15:10

@Tsundoku No idea about the basis for that claim, but Wikipedia says so, so that part at least makes a reasonable question even if only to debunk the claim.

Oh, now I see that [citation-needed] note was just added a few days ago by one ChristopheS on Wikipedia :-)

Tsundoku

I have edited the question again to remove the implicit assumption that Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory are synonyms.

Rand al'Thor

15:41

Oops, I forgot about editing the title :-)

@Tsundoku Do you think it's on-topic enough now?

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor It is sufficiently on topic. Let's see whether the OP leaves the question in its current state or modifies it again.

Rand al'Thor

Mephistopheles, we've made some edits to your question to bring it on-topic for this site: connecting the question more firmly to literature, and being a little clearer about the several different things you're asking about (Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory are not the same thing!), while hopefully preserving the intent of your original query and what you want to know. Are you satisfied with these edits? If so, I think we can reopen the post. — Rand al'Thor ♦ 13 secs ago

Rand al'Thor

16:06

@gktscrk Thank you, I'm sorry I couldn't provide more details. It's unfortunate that for someone of her literary footprint, we know next to nothing about Murasaki's life :( — Semaphore ♦ Aug 26 at 12:28

@EddieKal If you focus future questions more on Murasaki's autobiographical poetry than her historical life, then the questions can stay on this site and be more likely to be answerable ;-)

Bookworm

0

Q: Where did Anouilh acknowledge that his play Becket contains many historical inaccuracies?

The French playwright Jean Anouilh wrote the play Becket or The Honour of God / Becket ou l'Honneur de Dieu inspired by Archbishop Thomas Becket's conflict with king Henry II. (In 1964, five years after its premier on stage, the play was adapted into a film starring Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton ...

french-literature historical-context jean-anouilh becket-or-the-honour-of-god

Eddie Kal

@Randal'Thor Yeah. Btw I am very happy to have received that wonderful answer from Semaphore.

> The Frankfurt School of social theory and critical philosophy is sometimes described, on right-wing forums, as the source of "Cultural Marxism", supposedly an evil agenda of the left to destroy western civilization by destroying its culture.

Hmm I am still not sure about the wording here

If "right-wing forums" refers to 4chan, I don't think that is fair to people who are on the right side of the political spectrum.

Rand al'Thor

@EddieKal I've only visited History SE via the HNQ list, but they have some brilliant answerers there.

@EddieKal I'm not sure why the more specific reference was removed.

Eddie Kal

The association of 4chan and the great tradition of conservatism to a lot of conservative thinkers is unwanted and unwarranted. I don't think they want to be associated with people who love rape jokes and use the n word, the g word (gook), and the f word (faggot)

Tsundoku

I removed it because I'm not keen on sending people to go looking for 4chan. Any alternative wording you would suggest?

Eddie Kal

16:23

I would remove the entire first paragraph and put in a paragraph from the Mises article, but since that Mises article is a retort to Myon, I'd also include his words, like from this piece:

nytimes.com/2018/11/13/opinion/…

Knight