Robert Frost holds a coveted position in the category of Poets that (Almost) Everyone Knows. Many first recited “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” in grade school. Its use of chain rhyme and simple imagery provide a nice introduction to poetry, even for the youngest readers. And really, no
Thanks to the BBC’s hit TV series Sherlock, “I Am Sher-Locked” is the latest “it”-phrase among admirers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant madcap detective, Sherlock Holmes. Yet Doyle himself was never quite so locked on Sherlock as his fan-base. In his celebration of novel history’s giants, Lives of the
From the Cro-Magnon cave to the digital bookstore, Belinda Jack covers a lot of ground in her new book, The Woman Reader, the first to address the controversies associated with women’s reading throughout history, and to show how vastly different women’s reading experiences have often been compared to those of men.
There is no American novel with a success story more contentious than that of Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint. First published in 1969 amid scathing condemnations, it sold over three million copies in its first six years. Even more remarkable is that after four decades, the novel’s commercial and critical success
From the popular new series of YouTube vlogs, “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” to the recent rash of Austen-inspired self-help books, Jane Austen mania shows no sign of slowing down in 2012. In Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives, John Sutherland reflects on why Jane continues to
It would be no exaggeration to say that Romanian novelist Norman Manea is one of the most celebrated contemporary Eastern European writers in the Western literary world. His impressive collection of cultural and literary awards currently includes the MacArthur Fellowship (U.S.), the Nonino International Literary Prize (Italy), the Prix Médicis
Proverbs may by nature be short, but they pack an a lot of wisdom in a short space. Test your knowledge of proverbs with our Dictionary of Modern Proverbs quiz. Can you figure out what piece of wisdom is missing? Or when they were first used? You might be surprised
A sensitive discussion will ensue for anyone who names Carl Van Vechten a “father” of the Harlem Renaissance. Although married to Russian actress Fania Marinoff, Van Vechten never had children. Nevertheless, he was a patron and active supporter of many young artists and writers, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston,
“Je est un autre,” “I is someone else,” is one of Bob Dylan’s maxims. With 34 studio albums, over 500 songs, and a career that spans fifty years Bob Dylan’s voice is one recognizable to generations. Generations that each have their own memories of a different Dylan, a Dylan that
Defining a Change: Literary Theory, Truth, and Fiction in the Digital Age
Terry Eagleton’s newest book The Event of Literature addresses literary theory and tackles the question—what is literature—utilizing a variety of theories. Each theory has its own historical perspective that is formed by morals, values, and events. It is this ever-changing standard used to define literature that Eagleton grapples with in
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