The Reading Room

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12:15 AM

@Bookworm This question has a number of issues, but I might leave them for an American or someone more knowledgeable to address in a comment ...

b_jonas

1:06 AM

Ah great. We need a south american ancient history expert.

I mean an expert in the ancient history of South America.

7 hours later…

verbose

8:04 AM

@Randal'Thor Strictly speaking, it's not, unless the asker links it to a literary work. I don't feel strongly enough to cast the first vote to close.

@Randal'Thor heh, as usual you're too kind. I'm pleased with the answer generally, but "masterpiece", really? C'mon, man. Re: cripple, that seems to be just wrong; see @PeterShor's comment on your new question and my follow-up.

I love every one of the poems to which that answer links, so I'm glad you're reading (or re-reading) them.

verbose

8:24 AM

Re: Sidney and Marlowe, I've said before that Sidney is the 🐐. His place in English Renaissance culture is hard to overstate. He was a rock star. But not primarily for his poetry—he was just an all-round celebrity.

There were 700+ people at his funeral and some dude wrote a whole entire 30-page illustrated book about it.

(Meanwhile all my husband got was an obituary in the San Jose Mercury News, two Facebook posts, and a l'lle program at the concert organized for his memory.)

As for Marlowe, well, Ben Jonson coined the phrase Marlowe's Mighty Line, so yes, it seems that contemporaries did recognize that he made blank verse the flexible instrument it was on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage.

Eng Lit Learner

9:24 AM

Q: How to understand the structure "on account of because"?

Well, what if I make the drinks and you charge us your price on account of because we can mix the drinks we are mixing. (from the book Call Me by Your Name) How to understand the structure "on account of because," in which both mean the same thing? I think omitting either "on account of" or "be...

Rand al'Thor

9:35 AM

@Bookworm I've left a comment. I feel like there's a really interesting question somewhere there about the development of Native American expression, but the current post would need to be heavily edited to show a little more knowledge and invite that kind of answer.

verbose

@EngLitLearner I think we should grab this question and move it over here.

@Randal'Thor okay I'll turn the "crippled" comment into an answer tomorrow. Headed to bed rn.

Rand al'Thor

@verbose OK, goodnight :-)

Bookworm

9:54 AM

Q: Vultures and wives? What does this expression mean?

Extract from Pope's translation of the Iliad, Book XI, describing Agamemnon's rampage during the third battle: Wide o’er the field with guideless fury rolls, Breaking their ranks, and crushing out their souls; While his keen falchion drinks the warriors’ lives; More grateful, now, to vultures th...

meaning homer the-iliad alexander-pope

verbose

One thought before I go to bed: why is this question of @Randal'Thor's not opinion-based?

Rand al'Thor

10:31 AM

@verbose It might be; feel free to VTC if you think so. I felt it passes our (rather lower than most sites') bar for how much objectivity is needed to make a good question, and actually I wanted to post a more subjective analysis question about "The Withered Arm", not only historical-context questions, and get some more literary answers, but maybe I went too far into subjectivity.

I've asked a few other questions about "was this character portrayed negatively or positively", after learning my lesson from a more objective but less literary question based on authorial intent.

4 hours later…

Bookworm

2:14 PM

Q: Charles Stearns (1753-1832) Photograph

There is a photo of Charles Stearns which appears in the following website: https://www.sutori.com/story/theatre-for-young-audiences-a-timeline--8hWoa1VzoyAc1wAiN6TKfHrF I don’t know if this a true photo of Charles Stearns. Does anyone know where to find a photograph of Charles Stearns (1753-1832...

identification-request history-of-literature quote-source interpretation the-chronicles-of-narnia

Bookworm

3:05 PM

Q: Any knows who George H. Murphy is?

I am trying to identify who George H. Murphy is? He wrote a poem entitled "Iskander at the Bridge" in 1903 in The News & Observer, [Raleigh, N.C.] November 01, 1903, P. 3.

identification-request poetry history-of-literature

5 hours later…

Tsundoku

7:57 PM

@Randal'Thor (CC @verbose) Is that type of question fundamentally different from Does Shakespeare steer the reader's sympathy towards Venus or towards Adonis? Different interpretations may arrive at different conclusions, but as long as those conclusions are based on the text, shouldn't that be fine (instead of VTC'ed)?

Tsundoku

8:16 PM

While researching my answer this question about J. L. Austin and literary theory I came across the concept of whimperative, which looks like a question but is actually a request, e.g. "Can't you shut the door?"

1 hour later…

Bookworm

9:34 PM

Q: Short story - Man transports a dead dog to a field, but gets accused of murder with the blood in his van considered to be evidence

I think I read this in an anthology, probably in the 1980s or 1990s, possibly one of the Alfred Hitchcock anthologies. At the beginning, a man is transporting a dead dog to a field to bury it. I'm not certain if it was a family pet, or one that he hit on the road. As a result of transporting the ...

identification-request short-stories mystery-novels

Q: What is the "starry pole" in Blake's "Songs of Experience"?

Here's the beginning of "Introduction" from William Blake's Songs of Experience: Hear the voice of the Bard, Who present, past, and future, sees; Whose ears have heard The Holy Word That walked among the ancient trees; Calling the lapséd soul, And weeping in the evening dew; That might control T...

meaning poetry william-blake songs-of-experience

2 hours later…

Eng Lit Learner

11:39 PM

Q: "An abandoned shoe, a rotten tooth, a snub nose, the cook spitting in the soup of his masters are to love what a battle flag is to nationality."

An abandoned shoe, a rotten tooth, a snub nose, the cook spitting in the soup of his masters are to love what a battle flag is to nationality. It is from The Solar Anus, a translation of, L’anus solaire (a very peculiar work in the surrealistic genre). It was written in 1927 by the French autho...