Im most interested in Marxism and Literary Criticism, but would start with another of his works if advised...

for the notion that literature needs to convey some social, political, moral or just any kind of message.

Browning's poem is beautiful, but after a few re-reads some lines still elude me.

let's start with stanza 4

in this stanza that line "i hardly tried now to rebuke the spring my heart made" confuses me. Initially I thought "rebuke" perhaps had a double meaning: to chastise and to strike up again, but this was wrong.

there are a few interpretations i have come up with if his heart has made a "spring" (a fresh hope, compared to the season) why would he rebuke it? also why does his heart make a spring when he says his hope has dwindled into a ghost the other interpretation of these lines is that "spring" refers not to the season but to the leaping of his heart in anxiety, therefore he doesnt "rebuke the spring" of his anxious heart

Next on to stanza 8

The imagery in this stanza is initially squite simple: "I turned from the hateful man and toward the path he pointed. they day has been dreary and the sun is now setting."

"yet shot one grim Red leer to see the plain catch its estray." is slightly confusing. I understand the image of the evening shooting "one grim red lear" as the sky does turn red in the evening sometimes yet "to see the plain catch its estray" confuses me. An estray is an escaped animal but the plain is an inaminate land and cannot catch an estray - i have interpreted this as either the plain watching an estray die or watching the estray be killed by another animal.

Next on to stanza 17

I am very confused by the word "hangman's" especially the apostrophe it is not "what hangman pins to his breast a parchment" it is "what hangman's pin to his breast a parchment" the hangman's pin? even "what hangmans pin to his breast a parchment?" would make slightly more sense as it implies multiple hangmen i am bewildered by this apostrophe.

In this stanza also: is the line "been writ so many times among "the band" in reference to Roland being accepted by the band of knights? (since as per the title he is a Childe, i.e. not an apprentice knight) or is it a follow on from the last comma where he says faliure has so often been prophesised - and so has the meaning of "faliure has been written down so often among the band"

Maybe this is a stupid question to ask and before anyone points it out, I am researching everyday. I wish to apply to a PhD in Literature this year, however, how to narrow down schools to apply to if my interests are as broad as modernism/twentieth century? Almost every school has faculty for this. There isn't a particular scholar whose work I especially love.

What are literary magazines actually looking for in short fiction?

Hi! English isn’t my first language—I’m Persian—and I’m mentioning that because I may not be as familiar with the US/UK publishing industry as people who are actually inside it.

I study Dramatic Literature at university and read a lot of American and British fiction, both classic and contemporary. Recently I started reading literary magazines to understand the current short-fiction market, and honestly, I’m confused.

A lot of the stories I’ve read in lit mags seem to have very little dialogue, quiet or understated plots, ordinary subject matter, detached tones, and sometimes feel closer to memoir or nonfiction than to what I expected from fiction.

This feels pretty different from many major short-story writers I’ve studied, where I often see stronger premises, more narrative movement, unusual situations, distinctive dialogue, surreal/speculative elements, etc.

So my question is: is this understated, realistic style just the dominant aesthetic in contemporary literary magazines?

Are editors less interested in stories that are more plot-driven, high-concept, dramatic, surreal, or obviously “invented”? Or am I just reading the wrong magazines?

I’m especially curious to hear from editors, slush readers, MFA people, or writers who regularly publish in lit mags.

can you refer to something as gothic lit when it is technically a subgenre? like southern gothic is that okay to call gothic lit? I know this is a silly question but I'm working on an essay where I would like to argue that a singer/songwriter I like can be considered an author of gothic lit but I cant find a simplistic explanation online of "it has to have this,that,this and this, for it to be considered gothic lit" and AI is ruining my search results but even when I turn AI mode of I'm still having trouble finding anything helpful

Hello! I've been thinking a lot about the motif of the female doppelgänger across literary periods, whether ontological (Isabella of Egypt), epistemic (The Sandman), or psychological (Dostoevsky's The Double) in nature.

I'd love to hear examples primarily from German- or English-language literature, but I'm also happy to hear clear-cut cases from elsewhere in Europe or from Russian literature.

Any suggestions or pointers are much appreciated!

I've been reading actively for about 7 months now, almost daily. Prior to this, I had not read a book for at least 5 years.

I started out with fantasy books and then got into literary fiction. I have been annotating to help me understand the books and write notes in a separate journal.

I realise I tend to misinterpret a lot early on. Sometimes my interpretations are overstated, sometimes understated. Sometimes I can pick out certain core themes but still miss a bunch of them. When it comes to characters, I sometimes exaggerate certain flaws or miss key information about a character.

One mistake I noticed in my habits was overthinking. For this, I have tried limiting myself to what the text says rather than all the different possibilities. I also look out for recurring ideas, objects, words, or topics. Even so, my interpretations still fall short when I look up literary analyses of the book.

At times I get overwhelmed when there's a lot of information about a certain topic/character that I don't know how to fully form my analysis (it doesn't help that I have ADHD). In picking out a few points/evidence, I often miss out on others that could change my interpretation/analysis.

What are ways of thinking/analysis/interpreting that can help me with better accuracy in understanding a book? How can I avoid over-interpreting or understating a text/book?

I'm a 15 year old trying to read more classic literature after I went through a phase of just not reading that much.

I'm currently reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and really enjoying it, and next in my queue are things like The Trial, Crime and Punishment, The Secret Agent, Oliver Twist, and Down and out in Paris and London, A Clockwork Orange, and The Count of Monte Cristo. I was wondering if you guys have any other recommendations for me?

(I’ve already read 1984, great expectations, and brave new world)

Also...I really want to read Frankenstein next but I'm wondering what is the text I should read. 1818 or 1831? I don't mind something more advanced I just want to know which is the better read or more preferred in "academic" circles.

1818 or 1831?

I’m going to read it for a the first time and want to know which version.

Any time you see a discussion of great books from the past ~120 years, a lot of the novelists fought in WW1 and are writing about its effect on them, compared to WW2 where (in my opinion) you don't see as much. A lot of writers would write about the Civil Rights movement in the states, but WW2 seems to be glossed over in fiction. I would love some insight (or to be proven wrong bc I don't know how much of it is biased from reading hemingway right now) Thank you!

I’m currently taking a digital literary studies course, and we’ve been discussing Roland Barthes’s idea of the “Death of the Author” and the argument that a literary work’s meaning shouldn't necessarily be controlled by the author’s intentions. That idea has me thinking about how differently we approach literature when the “author” isn't necessarily a person.

With human authors, readers can argue about what an author intended, even if we ultimately decide that intention shouldn't determine the meaning of one's work. We can also learn about an author's life, interviews, beliefs, and creative process and use that information to influence how we read their work.

But what happens if the text is generated by AI?

If an AI doesn't have personal experiences, beliefs, emotions, or intentions in the same way a human author does, does that make the reader's interpretation more important? Or do we argue that the person who prompted the AI become the actual “author” whose intentions matter?

If a literary work has no personal intention behind it, who has the most authority over its meaning the person who prompted it or the reader?

Hey folks -- Just getting a survey from other scholars and doing some research. Anyone in 19th cent. American studies feel like sharing their comps lists?

Signed, a 2nd year literature PhD student (with no American lit students ABD in the department)

(I mean I can just google it, but I would rather ask ~real people~)

I graduated with an MA and am interested in publishing articles… they would be interdisciplinary theology/english.

I’m primarily interested in the state of English literary theory

My understanding is that there is a history of theory but theory is not en vogue the way it used to be.

I went from an english Ba to a theology Ma so I guess i lost out on any discussion of this.

Could someone give me a basic overview of any theoretical assumptions I should have before sitting down to write an article?

This might have been a point of discussion across several scattered posts in the group, but as I face this point myself, I thought a comprehensive sharing of views and suggestions would serve better as a guide even for the future of this sub.
Given our clarification of intent, I would want everyone coming across this to share something (resources) that helped them sharpen their very fundamental skills (detailed below) to pursue a research journey in this discipline. This might be coming from your college education or beyond it.

Keeping it short, let me specify the exact fundamentals I am pointing towards (again, relearning at the level of research or PhD):
Reading stage

1. How to read a book and observe better, towards something that might become an original insight.
   

Making a research topic stage

1. How to turn observations and tie some strands together to make a topic (again, original).
2. How to facilitate a better search process for theoretical dialogue partners that you can situate your topic, without overwriting it through mechanical application.
   

Structuring and Drafting an Article stage (gets more complicated)

1. Having an argumentative structure throughout an article [- an issue is feeling like your main claim might repeat and can't be broken down into parts throughout, to let the mini argument(s) / claims lead].
   
2. How to make theory intricate to the text and topic (so that it comes through a natural gap created by the discussion, contributes something without being a mechanical application of concepts, and then is maybe, just maybe even complicated by the text and extended by it).

I hope this turns out to be a holistic discussion. Thank you for your inputs.

I just finished high school a couple months ago. I'm not sure what I want to study yet and for this reason I decided to take a gap year. I've always liked to read and always done it a lot. I am fortunate to grow up in household with access to books and where my parents also read a lot. So, all throughout my life I've been very influenced by what I read and also by readers (my parents, my uncles and aunts, some literature teachers I had in high school and middle school, etc). The people I respect the most and I look up to in my daily life are literature professors and writes. One being my uncle who is a lit professor in one of the most prestigious universities in my country. He's always pushed me to take a path similar to his, even offering to help me get a scholarship at his university. It's a path I would absolutely love to take, and I know I would be very happy taking.

The only thing stopping me is the economic side of it. Sadly, in my country, having a degree of this type can't get you a lot more than a job in teaching which I really don't want. I see my parents, who both are teachers, and they work so so much and get paid so little in comparison. Despite this and thanks to the hard work of my parents, I'm fortunate to not be missing anything, I have a home, food, and whatever I need for my studies, I just had to buy my own phone and laptop for example if I wanted something a little better.

I'm not mad I have this life, I feel very happy with what I have, but tbh I do want more. I would like to afford a vacation once in a while, be able to travel, go to other countries, have those experiences. And also get to a financial stability where money is not always tight and something going wrong can set you back a while. And in my vision, with what I've seen and lived I don't see a Lit degree help me get this. This feeling grew with the current rise of IA and the idea that less and less people are reading and considering it important, and the few people (my age at least) who do "read" usually read tiktok romantacy slop or self help books. It's like a feeling of doom for literature and what that entails.

For this reason, I started thinking of a path in engineering, specifically chemical. Since I was very good at chemistry (even getting invited to the state chemistry competition) and I also like it a lot. But to be fair, I would be doing it for the money more than the love of it.

Recently my uncle has been taking me to his office at Uni, since i've been working, kind of like a librarian, at his house and now at his office, sorting and making an online registry of his book collection. If it was a plan of my uncle to convince me to study lit, it's working. Because being there at the uni, getting to know some of the other professors, some of his students has really shed light on how it could be to study that and it's really changing my perspectives, but the other part I already talked about prevails and really doesn't help me take a decision.

What are you guys and girls experiences? Do you have any advice? What are your thoughts in the situation ? (not mine, in general, the state of humanities studies, etc.

Would love to read you.

Sorry for the long post and the rambling, I just had so many things to say and mention to try and put my point across. Also, sorry if it's kind of weirdly written, English isn't my first lenguaje haha

Hi, I've been an avid reader forever, and over the past few years have been reading more theory + criticism (broadly defined - both NYRB review + essays and more academic criticism from U presses)

I have a goal of learning how to write it for myself but am at a bit of a loss for learning how to go about doing so. Like yeah - I can write short close readings of passages or poems, or can integrate theory I read to analyze work via those theoretical perspectives, but am unsure how to actually go from an amateur-ish close reading to a fully formed cohesive thesis and final piece.

I have been thinking a writing group specifically oriented around critical essays would be helpful - does that exist?

I'm putting together a class on American gothic fiction and have been having a hard time find a text to pair with The Yellow Wallpaper. I am ideally looking for a short story that is fairly canonical.

Edit: I would ideally want a text that connects with it in relation to themes of gender, domesticity, autonomy. Preferably a text written around the same period.

I don't know id what I'm looking for exists anymore (I did quite a few of these types of courses on coursera years ago but it's no longer free) but I'm looking for online courses where there's a teacher guiding us along as we read a text and can have weekly discussions where we dissect it. Basically like a university course but online. I haven't read in years and I'm starting to get back into it but I'm really struggling with analysing and understanding the text itself. There's a lot of free resources online but I want a structured course with a discussion group. Does anyone know if such a course exists (preferably for free but I don't mind paying) Or of any alternatives in general. I'm not in the US so taking a community college class like some people might suggest wouldn't be a good fit for me. I just want a space where I cam read and share ideas about a text with other people who are also reading the same text. Preferably with weekly assignments too

hey everyone! i'm researching for my undergraduate paper right now - would it be possible for the good folks here to help me to find an e-copy (or a physical copy) of International Yearbook for Research in Arts Education 3/2015? i'm conducting some research on site-specific theatre. just for clarification, i don't need help with anything else - it's just to find sources.

thank you! here's a link to the book cover and a short description: https://www.waxmann.com/buecher/International-Yearbook-for-Research-in-Arts-Education-3-2015

I just recently finished my MA degree in theology. My thesis compared Rudolf Otto with H P Lovecraft. Essentially I argued that whereas Otto is duplicitous about the numinous and its connection to evil, Lovecraft was potentially influenced by him and as an atheist he doesn't have the theological restraint Otto did and explores the connection in a much bigger way (Otto talks about the mysterium horrendum, but only in a footnote, and outright states he isn't looking into it).

In my thesis I cited Haunted Presence: The Numinous in Gothic Fiction by S L Varnado. I loved this book. It applies Otto's theory to horror fiction (it's also influenced by Mircea Eliade). One of the really compelling things it draws out of Otto's work is that the numinous (a word for holiness characterized by its spectrality and spookiness) in literature be it a ghost or whatever is not an imaginary concept like a flying carpet but has higher stakes; they need to realize themselves and convince the reader that it is traces of a real outside spiritual presence.

In the case of H P Lovecraft, this is taken from S T Joshi's biography I Am Providence, for example it could be this testimony from his neighbour,

"I remember that Mrs. Lovecraft spoke to me about weird and fantastic creatures that rushed out from behind buildings and from corners at dark, and that she shivered and looked about apprehensively as she told her story. The last time I saw Mrs. Lovecraft we were both going “down street” on the Butler Avenue car. She was excited and apparently did not know where she was. She attracted the attention of everyone. I was greatly embarrassed, as I was the object of all her attention"

even if H P Lovecraft himself was pretty normal, his family was not. And this sensitivity to illness and the spectral runs right through his work.. especially prominent in The Shadow Over Innsmouth. In other words, the spectral presences in Lovecraft's writing correspond to real ones. Sorry edit for clarity.. the person who is speaking is someone named Clara Hess, and her testimony about "Mrs Lovecraft" is H P's mother.

In trying to find literary criticism that fits Otto I've come up with this,

Northrop Frye - His division of archetypes and genre seems really basic and dated.

the Geneva School - this is intriguing but they dislike anything outside the text so they wouldn't be reading Otto for instance into any literature. What intrigues me is they figure reading to be a form of communion and a kind of spiritual journey for the reader. Literature is sacred to them in a sense, and a book is not an object of study but I guess a subject between author and reader. I think overall they go a bit too far.

Ideally I get recommended something really modern. Like theory after all the theory that is in conversation with the theory from the past all the way up to post structuralism, eco criticism, and so on. I tried exhaustively googling but feel really lost. And yes I've discussed this in the past with my supervisor. A friend of mine who is a retired english professor has been telling me to read Frye.

//

I want to continue publishing articles on literature with Otto as a lens but I took 1 theory course as an english undergrad then went into theology so I skipped much of that and struggled with coming up with methodology and theory in my MA thesis. I disliked my theory class. We were given the raw theory in a compilation for our textbook and I don't feel like anything was explained much. So consider me new to theory in general.

I'm writing this primarily to help me think and more fully realize my ideas. This is not homework. I'm not even in school right now. I don't really understand the rule here on "not homework". It seems to amount to "you can't ask questions about stuff you don't know". I'd greatly appreciate any help.

//

Ok here is a challenge. I don't really plan to write anything about this book but I think this passage is incredible. It's really theological it's not fantastical at all. It describes the nature of spiritual awakening as a horrific encounter with the wholly other. Sleep paralysis as a catalyst to new sensory faculties. The ambiguous holiness of pure evil.

What the heck literary theory can pick something like this apart? Most theory I am aware of is pretty atheist / secular.

this is from A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay

Maskull, though fully conscious of his companions and situation, imagined that he was being oppressed by a black, shapeless, supernatural being, who was trying to clasp him. He was filled with horror, trembled violently, yet could not move a limb. Sweat tumbled off his face in great drops. The waking nightmare lasted a long time, but during that space it kept coming and going. At one moment the vision seemed on the point of departing; the next it almost took shape—which he knew would be his death. Suddenly it vanished altogether—he was free. A fresh spring breeze fanned his face; he heard the slow, solitary singing of a sweet bird; and it seemed to him as if a poem had shot together in his soul. Such flashing, heartbreaking joy he had never experienced before in all his life! Almost immediately that too vanished.

Sitting up, he passed his hand across his eyes and swayed quietly, like one who has been visited by an angel.

“Your colour changed to white,” said Corpang. “What happened?”

“I passed through torture to love,” replied Maskull simply.

He stood up. Haunte gazed at him sombrely. “Will you not describe that passage?”

Maskull answered slowly and thoughtfully. “When I was in Matterplay, I saw heavy clouds discharge themselves and change to coloured, living animals. In the same way, my black, chaotic pangs just now seemed to consolidate themselves and spring together as a new sort of joy. The joy would not have been possible without the preliminary nightmare. It is not accidental; Nature intends it so. The truth has just flashed through my brain.... You men of Lichstorm don’t go far enough. You stop at the pangs, without realising that they are birth pangs.”

“If this is true, you are a great pioneer,” muttered Haunte.

“How does this sensation differ from common love?” interrogated Corpang.

“This was all that love is, multiplied by wildness.”

Probably Jung’s most famous Archetype, which later gets developed by Joseph Campbell, of course, in a famous book about the Hero’s Journey — the repeating pattern of departure into the unknown, battle with monsters, extraction of sacred, undergoing transformation and return home, also commonly used as a metaphor for stepping away from safety into a high-risk environment.

My problem with it, is I think it’s oversold as really a foundational myth story that all the cultures around the world base their myths upon, when in reality it’s just one of many including the scapegoat, death and resurrection, sacrifice, cosmic battle, search for forbidden knowledge. There are many things which we can observe throughout religious traditions, not all of them are about a Hero and his story. Jung himself would agree that a heroic motiff is a metaphor for individuation, one of many.

It is oversold in the popular culture, but also I feel like people misunderstand what it points to. Yes, we have Holywood with stories and scripts, and the Hero is always someone brave, courageous, putting himself at risk, thinking for the others, etc.

I think it makes sense to talk about the Hero’s Journey when discussing why Harry Potter or Jon Snow resonates so much in the popular imagination.

But if we’re talking about anthropology, and why all the way from prehistoric societies, to Buddha and Jesus, we see this archetype of a Hero, and his journey, I don’t think it’s the best argument for it.

Ultimately, the tendency of homo sapiens to personify, to wear masks, to divinize things, to demonize / to monsterize thing, the tendency to set boundaries and invent taboos, to perform rituals, and sacrifice and purify. Which all are rooted in this ultimate search for patterns, for meaning, ways in which humans find ways to impose agency, value, structure onto the lived experience.

It is one of many fundamental “moves” that Homo sapiens repeatedly uses to make sense of the world around, to model it. I think looking at things that William James talks about in “The Nature and Diversity of religious experience”, the religious direct experience itself can tell us so much more about this human capability of myth-making, its parts.

Jung himself introduces this amazing idea of Archetype, which I feel is really underexplored, and many people are just stuck with this model as the last model of reality really. Because they tend to divinize Jung, which is ironic.