Questions tagged [reception]
Questions about how audiences responded to specific literary works, including theories about the reception of literary works. This can cover both qualitative and quantitative aspects (e.g. sales figures). This tag should not be used for questions about how one author influenced another or for questions specifically about meaning or interpretation.
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What specific changes did Damian McNicholl make to A Son Called Gabriel?
Damian McNicholl's debut novel, A Son Called Gabriel, is about the coming of age of a gay Catholic boy in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The book was first published in 2004 and republished ...
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Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass: What are the best commentaries that have been written about them? [closed]
I have recently become more aware of the significance of Lewis Carrol's two most well-known works of fiction, particularly in terms of how they relate to the philosophy of language. I think that he ...
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How was the poem "The Pardah Nashin" received by critics and the general public?
I've been reading the poem The Pardah Nashin from the book The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu:
HER life is a revolving dream
Of languid and sequestered ease;
Her girdles and her fillets gleam
...
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Why isn't Arthur Conan Doyle considered a first-rate writer? [closed]
Why isn't Arthur Conan Doyle considered a first-rate writer?
I find the style of the Sherlock Holmes books astounding. Here are some of the sentences I liked:
Holmes lay with his gaunt figure ...
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Euripides - Were his Argonautical works considered canon?
After reading his work "Medea", I'm left wondering how the immediate audience and subsequent generations thought about it. Namely, whether it was accepted straight away as part of this wider ...
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How is the literature of the Beat Generation considered in academia, by literature experts? [closed]
How is the literature of the Beat Generation considered in the academia, by literature experts?
For instance, is it considered as a major movement, or a minor one?
Kerouac wanted to become the new ...
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Was Thomas Hardy's "Unkept Good Fridays" negatively received in its time?
Thomas Hardy's poem "Unkept Good Fridays" (1927) is about all the other people who did good deeds and were unjustly killed but don't have their names remembered or celebrated like Jesus ...
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When and where did Thomas Mann say that Effi Briest is one of the six best novels in his library?
Theodor Fontane's novel Effi Briest is often taught at German schools. The Wikipedia article about the novel has a section on the novel's legacy which says,
[Thomas] Mann said that if one had to ...
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Evidence that "What is an author?" and "The death of the author" had a bombshell effect?
The French Wikipedia article about Roland Barthes has a section on the literary critic's essay "The death of the author" containing the following statement:
Conjugué à la conférence de ...
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Evidence that many early readers misunderstood A Modest Proposal as a serious recommendation?
The Wikipedia article on satire has a section on censorship and criticsim which contains the following claim (emphasis added):
For instance, at the time of its publication, many people misunderstood ...
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Attitudes among literary critics to literary fiction featuring closed time loops? [closed]
I am looking for an explanation, with examples and citations, of the attitudes of professional literary critics1 in established publications2 towards published fiction3 involving a closed time loop4.
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How did the relationships in Henry James' "The Golden Bowl" strike contemporary readers?
In The Golden Bowl, the main characters are a woman (Maggie Verver), her father (Adam Verver), her friend (Charlotte Stant), and her husband (Prince Amerigo). Maggie seems to encourage Charlotte and ...
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Why did Victor Pelevin's books fail to get such popularity as they had in Russia? [closed]
Victor Pelevin is presumably the most best-selling contemporary writer in Russia. Several of his books have been translated to English, but none of them became even slightly popular among the Western ...
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What did the students at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind think of "Redwall"?
The Redwall series was originally written by Jacques for the students of the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind. This is pretty well documented, from the official website (click on "About Brian&...
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How does the trans community view Gore Vidal's 'Myra Breckinridge'?
Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge (1968) was perhaps the first major novel in English to have a transgender protagonist. Myra, née Myron, undergoes gender confirmation surgery. In order to retain Myron's ...
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