What is ‘manna’ from heaven? Manna is the name given to the food the Israelites ate during the wilderness wanderings recounted in Exodus chapter 16, following the parting of the Red Sea after the Israelites’ escape out of Egypt, where they had been kept as slaves of the Egyptians. But what precisely is manna? Let’s
Literature
July 23, 2021, 1:02pm Under its new “Read in Color” initiative, the Little Free Library is partnering with Brilliant Detroit—an organization which provides children educational programming and support in high-need Detroit neighborhoods—to bring thousands of diverse books to Detroit neighborhoods through Little Free Library boxes. Fourteen book-sharing boxes stocked with 2,500 books will be installed
Sir Philip Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry, also known as The Defence of Poesy, was written in 1579-80). It has at least one great claim to fame: it’s the first work of ‘literary criticism’ in English. Sidney’s essay is an ‘apology’ for, or defence of, the art of poetry, but Sidney was inspired to write
July 22, 2021, 3:03pm Ring the alarum-bell! It’s your first look at Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand as literature’s favorite murderous power couple, the Macbeths. (Unrelated: should someone should write a contemporary adaptation in which Lady Macbeth is a #GirlBoss and Macduff is a journalist at Business Insider?) Along with the photo came the announcement
‘The Pearl of Love’ is a 1925 short story by H. G. Wells (1866-1946). In 1927, Wells told the Sunday Express that this story, and his ‘The Country of the Blind’, were his two favourites among his short stories. Although it’s not his best-known story, it’s one of his most intriguing because the ultimate meaning
July 22, 2021, 1:23pm Exciting news for Haruki Murakami fans, as always: this past week, director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s feature adaptation of Murakami’s short story “Drive My Car” won Best Screenplay at Cannes. The screenplay was written by Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe; this marks the first time a Japanese writer has won Best Screenplay in Cannes’s
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus to the Romans by identifying him in public so they could seize Jesus and arrest him. Judas pointed out Jesus to the authorities by kissing him in greeting. But there is more to this story than meets the eye, so let’s take a closer look at
July 21, 2021, 2:39pm Well, $206,886, to be more exact. That’s $2,652 per card, in case you’re wondering. The Tarot de Marseille deck, gifted to Plath by Ted Hughes on the occasion of her 24th birthday, sold earlier this afternoon at a much-ballyhooed online auction (somewhat creepily titled Your Own Sylvia) conducted by Sotheby’s London.
Contrary to popular belief, T. S. Eliot did not come up with the phrase ‘objective correlative’. However, he did co-opt that expression to describe one of his most famous and influential theories of literature, specifically in relation to Shakespeare’s work. What did Eliot mean by ‘objective correlative’? In short, the phrase ‘objective correlative’ means a
July 21, 2021, 1:19pm The pandemic has prompted, among other things, a slew of relocations. Some of those relocations (ie. to your mom’s house) have proved, or will prove, temporary; others, encouraged by new work-from-home policies, may become permanent. Or maybe you’re one of those people who looked around at the flailing world last year
Although it is often conflated in the popular imagination with the much-loved musical it inspired, George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion is somewhat different from the romantic comedy My Fair Lady. Let’s take a closer look at Shaw’s play and some of its prominent themes. Before we offer an analysis of Pygmalion, though, let’s briefly
July 20, 2021, 2:31pm Dumani Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela and a writer himself, is auctioning two of his own books as NFTs to raise money for My Minimalist, his mental heath care web app. I Dream of Kemet and Young and On The Run from Apartheid will be listed on the NFT trade platform
Oscar Wilde’s short story ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’ appeared in the same year that Sherlock Holmes made his debut appearance in print, and curiously, both stories feature a man with an uncanny ability to read the details of people’s lives from very small details. But unlike Conan Doyle’s consulting detective, Mr Podgers the cheiromancer in
July 20, 2021, 1:48pm Shine the chainmail and sharpen the broadswords because the trailer for Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel—a broody historical epic of betrayal and vengeance based on Eric Jager’s 2004 nonfiction book The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France and starring Adam Driver, Matt Damon, Killing Eve’s
Although it is not his most famous soliloquy from the play, Hamlet’s ‘’Tis now the very witching time of night’ speech, which brings Act 3 Scene 2 to a close, is notable for the imagery Hamlet uses as he prepares to go and speak to his mother, Gertrude. Indeed, as the very phrase ‘witching time
July 19, 2021, 2:21pm Some book news for the royal watchers out there: Prince Harry is publishing a memoir with Penguin Random House in late 2022. According to the press release, the book will be “the definitive account of the experiences, adventures, losses, and life lessons that have helped shape him.” The Prince himself had
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot is a poem full of famous lines. Its opening words, ‘April is the cruellest month’, are among the most famous opening lines in all of poetry, while later on in the poem references to being shown fear ‘in a handful of dust’ and ‘a heap of broken images’
July 19, 2021, 12:47pm Since January 20th of this year, there’s been no shortage of artists and critics voicing their (mostly glowing) opinions about inaugural poet and rising star Amanda Gorman. Finally joining the conversation is enduring satirist Ishmael Reed, best known for his 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo and his 2019 play The Haunting of