Literature

TODAY: In 1899, Canadian folklorist Helen Creighton is born.    “The more closely one scrutinizes The Lord of the Rings, the more extraordinarily metafictional it appears.” Nick Groom wonders, is Tolkien’s mediaevalist fantasy really a work of modernism? | Lit Hub Criticism 26 new books to kick off your September. | The Hub “A handmade

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Where did the word ‘homosexual’ originate? It’s a surprisingly recent coinage, and dates from the second half of the nineteenth century, with a Victorian poet and critic being the first person to use the word in English. Let’s take a closer look at the etymology of ‘homosexual’, and learn

September 5, 2023, 12:23pm On the Road, Jack Kerouac’s era-defining opus, was first published sixty-six years ago today. In the decades since, Kerouac’s autobiographical, stream-of-consciousness novel has sold more than 3 million copies, become a staple of high school English curricula countrywide, and been hailed as one of the most influential English-language novels of the 20th century.

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Where does the word ‘odyssey’ come from, and what does it mean? In order to delve into the origins of ‘odyssey’, we have to travel back almost three thousand years to ancient Greece and one of the most exciting narratives in the whole of world literature. So if you’re

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘West End Girls’ was the breakthrough single for the Pet Shop Boys, hitting the number one spot in the UK in early 1986. But the song has its origins several years before this. Just what is the meaning of this mid-80s classic, and which classic poem was an important

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The term ‘scapegoat’ is well-known: it refers to an innocent person who has to carry the blame for something on behalf of other people. As the Oxford English Dictionary defines the word: the ‘scapegoat’ is ‘one of two goats that was chosen by lot to be sent alive into

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Visitor’ is a very short story by the American writer Lydia Davis (born 1947). The story is narrated by a parent expecting the arrival of their unborn child: the ‘visitor’ of the story’s title. Davis uses this premise to compare people at the beginning and end of life

August 31, 2023, 6:00am September is officially here, and that means—aside from the (hopeful) promise of cooler weather after a sweltering summer—a new month of paperbacks to look forward to. Below, you’ll find a wide-ranging selection of novels, stories, memoirs, and nonfiction studies being released in paperback this month, from authors new and famed alike.

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The editor of the Manchester Guardian (later to become The Guardian), C. P. Scott (1846-1932), was no fan of the word ‘television’. He famously commented: ‘Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it.’ Scott was right about the etymology of the word.

TODAY: In 1946, John Hersey’s “Hiroshima” is published in The New Yorker, taking up every page except the “Goings On” calendar.      Also on Lit Hub: New poetry by Jared Harél • Audiofile’s best audiobooks of August • Read a story from Steven Millhauser’s new collection, Disruptions

August 30, 2023, 10:01am The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest annual literary awards in the world with the prizes totaling $150,000. Writers become eligible by receiving a rare, starred review from Kirkus Reviews; this year’s 18 finalists were chosen from 608 young readers’ literature titles, 435 fiction titles, and 435 nonfiction titles. Kirkus

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Few recent songs have attracted more speculation and debate without really justifying such attention than Zach Bryan’s ‘Something in the Orange’. Although the song’s meaning has been the subject of some discussion, the central meaning of the song is anything but complex or ambiguous. Zach Bryan wrote ‘Something in

August 30, 2023, 10:30am Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, Greg Wrenn’s memoir, Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis forthcoming from Regalo Press. Here’s a bit about the book from the publisher: Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis is a deeply

“I happen to think that a work of art must not be suppressed and that an artefact of calculated corruption should be prosecuted.“–George Weidenfeld *  Lolita was originally published as a limited edition in France in September 1955. The book was released by Maurice Girodias of Olympia Press, a company known for specializing in pornography,

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘A Robin Redbreast in a Cage / Puts all Heaven in a Rage.’ This couplet constitutes the other most famous quotation from ‘Auguries of Innocence’ after ‘To see the world in a grain of sand’. But what is the meaning of this quotation? To understand the meaning of Blake’s

August 29, 2023, 6:00am The wheel of the year is turning, as it always does, beginning its slow shift from summer to the fall. If you’re unsure of how to spend the last days of August, rest assured that even if seasons always shift, one constant you can rely on is that there will always

The great French physiologist Claude Bernard developed the concept of the milieu intérieur: the delicately regulated fluid environment that surrounds our cells, courses through our arteries and veins, bathes every muscle and nerve, organ and bone in our bodies. Kidneys do many things to maintain the equilibrium, or “homeostasis,” of this fluid environment. They remove

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Some words have curious, and revealing, etymologies. The origins of the word ‘plagiarism’ are certainly revealing. The meaning of the word is fairly well-known: ‘plagiarism’ means stealing another person’s work, especially their writing, and passing it off as your own. To plagiarise is to seek to get the credit