The Reading Room

4:00 AM

My latest question is HNQ'ed!

6:26 AM

@bobble Congrats!

Also thanks for leaving that comment on my meta post. I meant to, but was wondering if it should be an answer or a comment or an edit to the question, and then it slipped my mind.

I see Puzzling has trained you not to let policy discussions in chat go totally unnoticed on meta ;-)

verbose

8:21 AM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr @Randal'Thor we need a tag for point-of-view, yo. We have one called narration that could be synonymous, but the term used in lit crit is pov.

Mithical

...is the @StackLiterature Twitter feed into this room dead...?

Tsundoku

Did it ever work?

Mithical

when it was first added, but that was like... 2017 :P

Looks like it last worked... April.

Rand al'Thor

@verbose We could merge/rename the existing narration tag into point-of-view - would that work?

Easy to do with the mod tool for merging tags, but I'll defer to @Tsundoku who knows literary terminology better than I.

Tsundoku

We already have narrator. What would those new tags cover that isn't already covered by the existing one?

Rand al'Thor

8:34 AM

Oh sorry, s/narration/narrator in my message above.

Tsundoku

In that case, I'd rather merger point-of-view into narrator.

Rand al'Thor

I'll let you and @verbose fight it out then :-)

Tsundoku

Because narrator already covers unreliable-narrator, which is a different narratological concept than point-of-view.

@Mithical I currently don't see a feed for Twitter posts. Do you have a link to the last item that that feed sent into the chat room? (I don't have much time today, unfortunately.)

Mithical

Apr 20 at 14:05, by Feeds

https://twitter.com/StackLiterature/status/1252230921937285124

Tsundoku

8:52 AM

So that came from the same bot that feeds the One Minute Reviews into this room. But the One Minute Review at least have an identifiable RSS URL. I'll need more time to figure out what I can do about the @StackLiterature feed.

Mithical

user -2 is the generic feeds user for any feed that hasn't had a custom profile set up

Tsundoku

Yes, but I've never seen a way to specifically use that feeds user for new feeds.

Mithical

It's the default...

verbose

@Tsundoku Everything that is included in the description of our narrator tag is actually subsumed under point-of-view: "Questions related to the concept of "narrator" in literature, i.e. the "voice" that appears to speak or tell a story. The narrator can usually not simply be equated with the author. There are various types of narrators, e.g. the omniscient narrator and the unreliable narrator."

Or at least, when it comes to prose fiction, that is the case. Certainly the narrators of lyric poetry (e.g., Sidney's sonnets), even in first person, can be unreliable and should not be equated with the poet. But the tag description says author, not writer, and we don't generally speak of the narrator of a poem in the first person, we speak of a persona.

Tsundoku

@verbose I think "point of view" will remind people mostly of first-person narrator vs third-person narrator etc, and not so much of reliability etc;

verbose

9:02 AM

I don't see how "reliability" is different from the question of narrative point of view?

Tsundoku

You don't see it, but those tags are not just for you and me; they're also for people who are less familiar with literary terms.

verbose

Sure, we could retain the unreliable-narrator tag if you think we should keep it, but there are zero questions associated with it right now.

Tsundoku

unreliable-narrator was merged into narrator some time ago, which is why it doesn't have its own questions.

verbose

I see

But if the term used in lit criticism is point of view, what is lost by synonymizing narrator with point-of-view?

I mean, somebody searching for a tag would type "narrator" in the search box and all the point of view questions would come up anyway, wouldn't it?

Tsundoku

(See also Should we have an unreliable-narrator tag? from July.)

Eng Lit Learner

9:10 AM

0

Q: Very Short Passage From an English Poet Like a Puzzel- Need to be Analysed

I came across a passage from a poet by Alexander Pope and don't understand it in terms of grammar and meaning. Could you help me understand it, please? The passage is that: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man. The part that I don't understand is "presu...

verbose

@Tsundoku I took a look at that discussion, thanks for bringing it to my attention! But it doesn't quite address the terminological question I'm raising. If the accepted narratological umbrella term for first-person, omniscient, third-person limited, unreliable, etc. is point of view; and if synonymizing narrator with point-of-view would still give folks the ability to search by "narrator", what are we losing by using a tag that's the correct one for literary analysis?

Tsundoku

I suppose it would be OK. Unfortunately, I don't have much time today. I'll be back in eight hours from now.

Rand al'Thor

@verbose Especially since unreliable-narrator would also be kept as a synonym (the same tag can have multiple synonyms). So even people typing unreliable... into the tag box would find the right tag, or searching literature.stackexchange.com/search?q=[unreliable-narrator] would find the list of questions tagged with the synonym target.

verbose

@Randal'Thor yeah, so I guess we'll wait to hear what @Tsundoku's further thoughts are once he's able to discuss this at leisure, but based on what you're saying rn I'm even more convinced that we should switch the tags then.

verbose

9:56 AM

@Tsundoku What's the diff between HNQ Literature and HNQ +literature on that feeds page?

Bookworm

1

Q: What's the significance of “Collegisse juvat” in Aurora Leigh's fan-mail?

In book III of Aurora Leigh (1856) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the narrator, who has published some popular poems, reads her fan-mail, which includes: … rarer tokens from young bachelors, Who wrote from college (with the same goosequill, Suppose, they had just been plucked of) and a snatch Fr...

poetry elizabeth-barrett-browning aurora-leigh

verbose

10:42 AM

Thanks @GarethRees for the bonus! You’re so kind, you’ve given me two in as many weeks

b_jonas

11:09 AM

literature.stackexchange.com/q/16314/139 OP bountied this question (from association bonus) but didn't bother to edit any details into it. :(

What should we do with this thing

Ah, they left a comment instead of editing. Let me see.

Would pointing them to the story-id guide help at this point?

Nah, it probably wouldn't.

@Chipster: Beck is a nerd, and like all nerds in 2019, he knows in his heart that the solution to every problem is drones. — Paul D. Waite Jul 7 '19 at 23:10

I beg to differ. I was a nerd in 2019, and I didn't believe that.

Tsundoku

11:44 AM

@verbose Those are two of my failed attempts to create an HNQ feed for our site.

Bookworm

12:58 PM

0

Q: What's meant by "the illusion of the chapel ended" in The Just Men of Cordova?

In chapter 17 of The Just Men of Cordova (1917) by Edgar Wallace, the author is describing a captured man who had been led to a building: The sight he saw was a remarkable one. He was in a chapel; he saw the stained-glass windows, but in place of the altar there was a low platform which ran alon...

meaning the-just-men-of-cordova edgar-wallace

Bookworm

1:23 PM

0

Q: Is it known why Tolkien made Sam be Frodo's servant rather than very close and trusty friend "on equal terms"?

If I have to find one "flaw" about The Lord of the Rings, it may be the fact that Sam is more or less the slave of Frodo, albeit a willing servant. This fundamentally bothers me, for some reason. Perhaps because I'm essentially Sam in terms of social status, if even that. Although he ends up bein...

j-r-r-tolkien the-lord-of-the-rings

Eng Lit Learner

6:43 PM

0

Q: English poems where Shakespearean characters are mentioned

This questions is not quite about learning the language, but could you recommend me some poems in English (from 18th-20th centuries) where Shakespearean characters (Hamlet, Ophelia, etc.) are mentioned in the text?

writing literature poetry reference academic-writing

Bookworm

1

Q: "Walking to Work" by Frank O'Hara

I'm looking for any insight on the poem "Walking to Work" (1952) by Frank O'Hara. I feel like the meanings are just escaping me, and I can't find any analysis on the Internet to support/challenge my ideas. Here is the poem in full. It's going to be the sunny side from now on. Get out, al...

poetry interpretation frank-o-hara

Rand al'Thor

@EngLitLearner @EddieKal Recommendation questions aren't on-topic here :-(

I won't modhammer it immediately and reject the migration, in case someone can think of a way to save it. But most likely that'll end up closed.

Eddie Kal

@Randal'Thor Apologies.

Gallifreyan

7:09 PM

@Randal'Thor Ooops

I just did

Should've read here first

But to be honest, to edit this question to be on-topic is to ask another question entirely

Prince North Læraðr

Ey, long time no see Gallifreyan!

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan Yeah, it was a long shot to think it might be rescuable.

Gallifreyan

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Aye, the last time we talked you had a different name

Bookworm

0

Q: English poems where Shakespearean characters are mentioned

This questions is not quite about learning the language, but could you recommend me some poems in English (from 18th-20th centuries) where Shakespearean characters (Hamlet, Ophelia, etc.) are mentioned in the text?

poetry

Prince North Læraðr

Aye, I did indeed

bobble

7:26 PM

@Bookworm found a link to a copy of the poem online - should the full-text be edited out of the question and replaced with the link?

verbose

8:00 PM

personally I find the full-text useful. IANAL but I also believe that it would fall under fair use.

verbose

8:21 PM

This question restates the rejected ELL post. I just voted to close.

Bookworm

0

Q: Poems in English about Shakespearean characters

could you please recommend me some poems in English (from 18th-20th centuries) where Shakespearean characters (Hamlet, Ophelia, etc.) are mentioned in the text?

poetry william-shakespeare hamlet king-lear old-english-literature

Tsundoku

9:23 PM

R. C. Waldun: Read Everything, Especially The Unexpected: a call to read outside of your comfort zone.

Tsundoku

10:33 PM

German Language SE also has a literature tag. (See also Are questions about German literature on-topic?.)

Transcript for