classics
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Queering the Canon
For VICE, Lindsay King-Miller examines the literary tradition of retelling and reworking classic stories and the importance of bringing queer arcs in particular to our old standbys: Revisiting a story gives us an opportunity to explore universal experiences from the…
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The Working Titles of Classic Lit
While the great classics studied in classrooms everywhere tend to have very memorable titles, those classics could have received slightly different treatment had their working titles been used instead. Over at Electric Literature, Carrie Mullins looks at several classics whose titles changed before publication.
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A Rhetorical Tragedy
We enjoy tragedy because through it, we are able to purge those aspects of ourselves with which we are most uncomfortable. Our onstage avatar embodies all those thoughts and feelings, desires and fears, ambitions and delusions with which we are…
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The Rumpus Interview with Cote Smith
Cote Smith talks about his debut novel, Hurt People, growing up in a prison town, using rejection as motivation, and brotherly love.
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Sinatra Wore It Better
The Guardian has a series of incredible photos of the Chairman from the new book Sinatra: The Photographs, and they confirm what we already knew: the crooner outclasses us all, one perfectly tailored suit at a time. Check out the…
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Repeat the Past, Break the Future
A god does not intervene. A mortal dies. Things happen repeatedly, then suddenly they differ. That rhythm of action, which combines repetition with asymmetry, is the rhythm of Homeric narrative and of the Homeric style. And it is designed to…
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Classic Literature Or Social Construct?
Classic literature is neither timeless nor fundamental. Writing is bound by its place in history, both as we read it and as it was written, and the idea of a universal experience is simply another construct of the dominant culture,…
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Classic Literature or Science Fiction Backstory?
Science fiction creates its whimsical magic by imagining new worlds, or sometimes even new universes, for readers to lose themselves in. But what if the best inspiration we can get for writing about the future comes from our past? A…
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Mark Twain Still Popular…In China!
Did you know that Mark Twain is one of the best known foreign writers in China? Neither did we. There is a well earned, and unabashed image of Mark Twain as the quintessential American author and for good reason. The…
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Was This Review Helpful? Amazon and the Search for an Unassailable Masterpiece
One customer review of “The Catcher in the Rye” warns readers that it will make you “want to kill yourself.” Another calls Holden Caulfield a “whiney, immature, angst ridden teenager who need[s] a smack in the head.”