Iambic pentameter has been around in English verse for … well, almost as long as English verse itself has been around. Certainly, since the late fourteenth century when Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400), arguably England’s first great poet, used iambic pentameter in his work, this five-foot and ten-syllable verse line has proved indispensable to pretty much
Literature
March 11, 2021, 2:42pm The UK arm of Bookshop.org, the online retailer that partners with indie bookstores, has a new initiative on the way: it’s launching a series of online events for its customers as well as customers of unaffiliated indies. For the first event on March 23rd, Bookshop is partnering with Faber to host
TODAY: In 1744, English auction house Sotheby’s holds its first ever auction, the dispersal of “several Hundred scarce and valuable Books in all branches of Polite Literature” from the library of Sir John Stanley, which fetched a grand total of £826. “As to whether a male writer might have enjoyed more recognition for the same
The myth of Oedipus is one of the most famous tragedies in all of classical mythology. But how did this Greek myth come about? And what does it mean? Before we address these questions, it might be worth recapping the story of Oedipus in the form of a brief plot summary: Oedipus myth: summary There
TODAY: In 2011, Bill Blackbeard, founder and director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a comprehensive collection of comic strips and cartoon art from American newspapers, dies. Lauren Groff in praise of Shirley Hazzard, whose “humor is built out of close observation and the precision of poetry.” | Lit Hub “Only when the
Published in 1678 and begun while its author John Bunyan was in prison, The Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the most influential books in the English language. After the Bible (in various English translations), it’s thought to be the biggest-selling book in English: one count, from 1692, just fourteen years after the book’s first publication
March 9, 2021, 2:47pm If you’re looking for something interesting to do while wearing your Murakami-themed shirt and listening to your Murakami-curated bossa nova, here’s an idea: play Memoranda, a point-and-click adventure game inspired by Murakami’s short stories. Memoranda, released by Canadian indie studio Bit Byterz in 2017, tries to capture Murakami’s surreal, melancholy atmosphere
March 9, 2021, 5:59am With the weather getting slightly warmer and spring just around the corner, I have vaguely thought about the concept of “getting back into shape.” In college, my friends and I used to go to the Rec Barn to exercise (read: read) on the stationary bikes. If this is the kind of
‘How Doth the Little Crocodile’ is a poem by Lewis Carroll, one of the two acknowledged masters of Victorian nonsense verse (along with Edward Lear). Although the poem is among his most popular, after ‘Jabberwocky’, ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’, and The Hunting of the Snark, its curious origins are less well-known. Before we offer
March 8, 2021, 4:44pm Yes, more than four decades on from its original publication, Octavia Butler’s legions of fans will soon be able to watch a prestige television adaptation of the visionary Sci-Fi author’s most beloved novel, and I think I speak for everyone when I say, it’s about damn time. Deadline today announced that FX
TODAY: In 2012, Simin Daneshvar, Iranian novelist, dies. “It is an odd kind of optimism, but it is the kind I am in search of.” Leora Fridman considers Takis Wuerger’s controversial Holocaust novel, Stella. | Lit Hub Criticism Megan Nolan recommends unrequited love stories, peopled with yearning characters who “may be crushed by their need,
Cats and the internet have proved a match made in heaven: there are probably more quips about 90% of the internet being ‘pictures of cats’ than there actually are pictures of cats on the internet. But cats have not always enjoyed such adulation and worship. Indeed, throughout much of history, cats were symbols of witchcraft
Nathaniel Rich, Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade (MCD) Writing about the climate crisis poses a strange kind of challenge to journalists used to working in the world of what is known: How do you tell the story of a future planet? While our lives, habits, and access to resources will profoundly change, and soon, Nathaniel Rich
TODAY: In 1616, Nicolaus Copernicus’s book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres is added to the Index of Forbidden Books, 73 years after it was first published. “Every time we step away from our book there’s the danger we’re going to lose track of one or more of these threads, and the project will
‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’ is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, written in 1841. A maelstrom is a whirlpool: the word dates from at least the sixteenth century and was formed from Dutch words malen (meaning ‘grind’) and stroom (meaning ‘stream’). The story Poe weaves out of this natural phenomenon is highly suggestive,
TODAY: In 1806, poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning is born. “Words, for the first time ever, were more predictable than my business career.” Isabel Yap on the surprising lessons she learned—about writing, and life—at Harvard Business School. | Lit Hub Gabriel Weisz Carrington reflects on his mother Leonora Carrington’s newly discovered tarot, which is “endowed with a
March 5, 2021, 10:00am Did you know? Bret Easton Ellis was born this weekend (March 7, to be exact) in 1964. In honor (?) of this highly problematic Pisces, I’ve ranked all the movies that have been adapted from his books. I am aware there might be some debate about this, but #ISaidWhatISaid. 1. American
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys Asimov’s second Robot novel which eerily prefigures our world On the planet of Solaria, people don’t ‘see’ each other: ‘seeing’ is viewed as abnormal, even dirty, because it means coming into contact with other people’s breath, germs, and sweaty bodies. Instead, Solarians ‘view’