The Swooning Knights of Medieval Stories
In romantic literature of the fourteenth and fifteen centuries, fainting wasn’t just for ladies.
Shakespeare’s First Published Work
Celebrated for his plays, Shakespeare actually opened his writing career with a derivative poem.
Up the Junction: A Place, A Fiction, A Film, A Condition
In addition to a New Wave hit, Nell Dunn's 1963 book about young women in a poor London neighborhood inspired a Ken Loach adaption that helped shift British attitudes toward abortion.
What Do Gardens and Murder Have in Common?
Writers have long plotted murder mysteries in gardens of all sorts. What makes these fertile grounds for detective fiction?
Chinese Science Fiction Before The Three Body Problem
Viewing the genre as a means to spread modern knowledge, Chinese novelists have been writing science-fiction stories since at least 1902.
José Garcia Villa, an American Poet Ahead of His Time
While Villa’s otherness created an opening for his work in the US, American critics ultimately held both his modernism and his nationality against him.
Mark Twain’s Obsession with Joan of Arc
Despite being famous for his witty analyses of the American South, Twain was proudest of the historical fiction he wrote about France’s legendary martyr.
G. Legman and the Bawdy Eclectic
A fierce opponent of censorship, Gershon Legman helped legitimize the academic study of erotic folklore as manifested in jokes, limericks, and songs.
What Is Punctuation For?
Between the medieval and modern world, the marks used to make writing more legible changed from “pointing” to punctuation.
That Time Thor and Loki Cross-Dressed
Why the Old Norse gods disguised themselves as a bride and bridesmaid before visiting Thrymr, king of Jötunheima.