The Reading Room

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Bookworm

01:07

Q: Did Hitler use Marx's "On the Jewish Question" as source material?

So, I was researching Karl Marx, and apparently he wrote a book/article called On the Jewish Question. Several people say that Hitler used this as source material, but they don't provide any conclusive evidence. Did Hitler actually use On the Jewish Question as source material?

Eddie Kal

01:24

The Daleks, Planet Skaro (when not fighting Time Lords)

151 5

adolf-hitler dante-alighieri inferno italian-literature karl-marx meaning

> I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of this whole "Black Lives Matter" thing. Black lives do matter, but that doesn't give people an excuse for "non-violent" looting and rioting (which are, by definition, violent).

Also, consider this:

BLM: "We support the doctrines of Karl Marx."

Karl Marx: A blatant, unrepentant racist, who particularly liked to accuse people he disliked of being "polluted" with black ancestry. Also, he wrote a book called On the Jewish Question, which Hitler cited as source material for his anti-Semitic doctrines.

b_jonas

@GarethRees Yes, but I asked about the fantastical creatures, so those questions don't really impact it.

@Randal'Thor Exactly. We were talking a lot about how we don't know the scope of Lit SE, and the only way to find out is to ask questions that may or may not be on topic.

@Tsundoku ^

If it's off-topic, then it can be closed, and we learn omre about the scope of Lit.

I would like to ask more such questions, but asking good questions is hard and takes time.

@Randal'Thor Right, you can downvote or flag the question if it's off topic, or downvote the answer if it's not an answer you should give anywhere, even on a different site.

As for the actual answer, I'll have to study it in more detail, but you were still growing it yesterday so I haven't yet.

3 hours later…

Bookworm

04:25

Q: Did James Joyce focus more on literary style and methods but a little less deep focus on the main content?

I started reading James Joyce with his poetry Pomes Penyeach and then I went for some short stories in Dubliners. I found that the style and the sudden change of contents (as especially in The Dead) makes me admire him, poems in Pomes Penyeach have a picturesque imagery in them (it could be due t...

style james-joyce theme pomes-penyeach

3 hours later…

Bookworm

07:18

Q: What does the first chapter of Toni Morrison's "Playing in the Dark" open with this Eliot verse in Black Matters?

As an epigraph a T. S. Eliot verse appears at the beginning of Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination: I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing. T. S. Eliot from “Pre...

toni-morrison

2 hours later…

Rand al'Thor

09:05

@Tsundoku I edited in a more specific source and undeleted it (but didn't upvote it).

4 hours later…

Bookworm

13:29

Q: Romance Sombulano

What does Lorca mean in his poem Romance Sombulano when he says: Tiny tin-leaf lanterns were trembling on the tiles. A thousand crystal tambourines were wounding dawns dark sky

poetry spanish-literature federico-garcia-lorca

1 hour later…

North Læraðr

14:36

@EddieKal People are entitled to their own opinions. People hold the right to ~~be wrong~~ feel how they want to

Bookworm

Q: Starting a poem with a "small letter"

I read a poem entitled Archery by Carl Phillips: The first few lines read as: was still a thing, then. To have timed your arrow perfectly meant watching the air for a moment... As a basic reader I saw a poem starting with a small letter for the first time. Is it any literary device? And, does t...

poetry

North Læraðr

Though I think that profile description is rather... ignorant. The BLM does not support any form of looting or rioting from what I know... but it's not within our jurisdiction to discuss this

Napoleon Wilson

It's also interesting that he makes a claim in his profile, while actually being unsure enough about it to ask for its veracity on the site. ;-)

North Læraðr

Interesting people in this world :/

@NapoleonWilson Reminds me of a very wise statement Gareth McCaughan (mod on Puzzling Stack Exchange).

in The Sphinx's Lair, Aug 27 at 21:27, by Gareth McCaughan

As soon as you ask "how can I gather the evidence that most supports the argument I already decided to make?" you are on the road to hell.

That question is in essence, is this statement

Napoleon Wilson

15:06

Possibly, yes.

Faded Giant

15:19

Well, it's not like this kind of confirmation bias would be anything unusual.

North Læraðr

@FadedGiant True

Napoleon Wilson

Though, I wouldn't be surprised if Hitler tried to reappropriate some of Marx's writings. I would be surprised if Marx would have appreciated that.

And trying to turn that that into BLM being hypocrites or anti-semites is a whole 'nother story.

North Læraðr

Ugh

Napoleon Wilson

And besides all that, I didn't even notice that the question seems unrelated to literature anyway.

Eddie Kal

@NapoleonWilson I hope you are being sarcastic. It is clear enough that individual is making a statement with that question. They are less interested in getting any well-informed answer than in boosting visibility of the claim that Hitler was inspired by Marx, and Marxism is the foundation of Nazism.

Napoleon Wilson

15:33

@EddieKal Hope less and read further. ;-)

Eddie Kal

Oh they are very certain

Super cheesy but...

> “Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

@FadedGiant Exactly, making a statement with a question is not in itself anything wrong or unusual. A lot of people do it. I myself do it occasionally.

North Læraðr

@EddieKal But why would you make an assertion and then post a question to support your assertion? Did they just say it without being sure or do they just want validation?

Ugh, you know I'm just gonna step back before I violate the Be Nice policy

Eddie Kal

@NorthLæraðr Self-answered questions are not uncommon on SE sites

North Læraðr

@EddieKal They haven't self-answered anything

Rand al'Thor

Even without self-answering, it's possible to post a question that you know (or could easily find) the answer to, e.g. if you feel that that question will be a useful thing to have on the site. I've done it many times, as has Napoleon I think.

Eddie Kal

15:47

@NorthLæraðr I mean some not all self-answered questions are also a form of statement question. Some questions are posted with an answer in mind.

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor I do ask questions primarily to the benefit of the site and to talk about things I deem worth talking about. But when I know the answer (and it's not just a Wikipedia lookup), I also post it immediately.

Giving others a chance at answering in all honours, but I don't like trying to pretend I don't know the answer. Instead I can be honest about it and further the usage of the builtin SE facilities for BlogOverflow.

Eddie Kal

@NapoleonWilson Good practice. Reminds me that I should probably post an answer to my OED question.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Not posting it isn't necessarily pretending that you don't know it. Maybe writing it up takes more time than you can spare at the moment.

Or (especially on a site like Lit) there may be several different possible answers and you want to see what others come up rather than sending it straight out of the unanswered list with your own interpretation.

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor But when I'm already over writing it, I can as well wait until I have properly fleshed it out.

Of course if I only have a quick unformed thought what could be the answer, I don't consider that knowing it and being able to give it. Maybe that's the difference in definition.

Rand al'Thor

Sure.

Bookworm

16:47

Q: What the Idiom "pound of flesh" meant to "Shylock"?Was this a sense of humor of SHYLOCK?

SHYLOCK a Jewish moneylender hated ANTONIO. Bassanio in need of money approached Antonio for a loan. Antonio at that time could not afford the amount of loan, instead, he advised Bassanio to approach Shylock for the loan on the security of an approaching shipment. ...

character-analysis william-shakespeare historical-context the-merchant-of-venice historical-romance

Eddie Kal

17:24

@Bookworm This account appears to be under suspension on most sites where they have an account. Some suspensions given appear to be year-long.

3 hours later…

Mithical

20:30

Hmmm, I've exhausted my stash of pre-written questions.

(As in... questions I wrote out and saved for later in a text file.)

Bookworm

21:20

Q: How is capitalization being used in Maya Angelou's "On the Pulse of Morning"?

I was looking through Maya Angelou's "On the Pulse of Morning", and noticed that there's an interesting use of capitalization in the poem. (I checked multiple version to make sure that this was consistently used and not just one transcription's weirdness.) For instance, the words "Rock", "River",...

poetry maya-angelou

2 hours later…

Bookworm

23:48

Q: Point of view- Worn Path by Welty

In the story "The Worn Path" by Welty; Describe the point of view of the story. How does the point of view affect what we know about the situation? How does it preserve the story's suspense?