Strange Explanations
An impassioned plea for people to be more dishonest with one another.
What is "The Decay of Lying" by Oscar Wilde?
This author famously proclaimed that "A woman must have money and a room of her own."
Who is Virginia Woolf?
An orphan found on the streets of Liverpool.
Who is Heathcliff?
This literary-historical period coincided with several major changes in the political structures of European nations--including, for instance, the French Revolution.
What is the Romantic period?
All good poetry is "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility."
What is from "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" by William Wordsworth?
It's about two families that torture each other even as they love each other.
What is Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë?
While studying in Belgium, this author refused to change how [they] dressed to fit the local fashions, stating, "I prefer to be as God made me."
Who is Emily Brontë?
This hero was one of several whose legend appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Who is Theseus?
Dark, brooding, tortured, and mysterious... This type of character is often charming and intelligent, but he doesn't always concern himself with doing the right thing.
What is a Byronic hero?
"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it."
What is from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë?
A young woman gets told to stay off the grass.
What is "A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf?
This author originally published under the pseudonym "Currer Bell," alongside [their] siblings, "Acton" and "Ellis" Bell.
Who is Charlotte Brontë?
He claims that "the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realize that energy."
Who is Vivian (from "The Decay of Lying")?
One of two related aesthetic categories. The other is beauty, the appreciation of what is pleasing but clear and harmless.
What is the sublime?
"Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping."
What is from "A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf?
All that really happens is a man finds a few old blocks of stone in a desert.
What is "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley?
Allegedly, this author was interrupted during the composition of [their] masterpiece by a traveler from Porlock, leaving the poem unfinished.
Who is Samuel Taylor Coleridge?
His "Godlike crime was to be kind."
Who is Prometheus?
This concept, attributed to John Keats, allows for the appreciation of literary art "without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."
What is negative capability?
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
What is "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats?
A man thinks about dogs while looking at a portrait of someone whom he has never met.
What is "A Story for Aesop" by John Berger?
This author's series of "Lucy" poems vividly imagined their speaker's strong feelings of love for the enigmatic woman Lucy. Some critics now speculate that Lucy may have been inspired by the author's sister.
Who is William Wordsworth?
A weary sailor encounters this strange entity far out at sea. Symbolically, she gambles for and wins the soul of that poor sailor.
Who is LIFE-IN-DEATH (from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner")?
The idea that there was only one way to spell a given word was invented during this period of the history of the English language.
What is the period of Early Modern English?
"He went like one that hath been stunned, / And is of sense forlorn: / A sadder and a wiser man, / He rose the morrow morn."
What is from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge?