Category: Miscellaneous/Humor

Ample Book Trivia: 45+ Online Literature Quizzes to Consume Your Day

May 10, 2017

Quizzes are meant to be quick. That’s the general understanding, at least. Maybe because of this, while there’s no shortage of book quizzes to be found on BuzzFeed, Sporcle and the like, many of them feature the same classic literary sediment being stirred up to the surface. Now, there’s nothing wrong with user-created quizzes on … More Ample Book Trivia: 45+ Online Literature Quizzes to Consume Your Day

3 Garden Path Sentence Headlines for Our Age of Fake News and Questionable Intentions

November 22, 2016

A couple nights ago, I listened to an NPR interviewee talk about Steve Bannon’s two-pronged threat to liberal politics as being a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” approach. References to various pieces of gothic literature, like Frankenstein, had already appeared as political commentary in some online arenas earlier in this year’s election season. When I … More 3 Garden Path Sentence Headlines for Our Age of Fake News and Questionable Intentions

What’s Wrong with Victor? The Root of Frankenstein’s Isolation

November 2, 2016

Isolation, alienation and loneliness are prominent themes in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s 1818 classic novel Frankenstein. Some analyses theorize that Victor Frankenstein makes a misguided attempt to create a human being due to his isolation from friends and family. His solitude can be compared with that of Robert Walton, a sea captain on a mission to … More What’s Wrong with Victor? The Root of Frankenstein’s Isolation

[A Read-Online Comic] Stick-figure Summary of “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley

October 31, 2016

Adapter’s note: While the following is a free adaptation of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s classic work and contains certain probably obvious elements not present in the original, it also more or less follows the actual plot of the book as put down by Ms. Shelley. This means spoilers spoilers spoilers. For your convenience and edification, any text … More [A Read-Online Comic] Stick-figure Summary of “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley

Insidious Intent: “J. Alfred Prufrock” as an Etymological Map

July 7, 2016

You may have heard that a lot of English words come from French. That’s interesting in theory, but what would it actually look like if you could see it? What if you could see linguistic influences in colors, like an etymologist with synaesthesia? I started to wonder about this and also wondered what would happen … More Insidious Intent: “J. Alfred Prufrock” as an Etymological Map