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Literary Criticism
When done right, dark humor can help us face inconvenient truths and question stifling social conventions.
Dante’s epic journey through hell and heaven reveal how the poet felt about his own country.
Take a closer look before judging a book by its title.
An insect? A vermin? An unwanted animal? What in the world is Franz Kafka talking about?
Bram Stoker's mother survived a terrible cholera outbreak and recounted the ghastly scenes to her son years later.
Not every classic enjoyed rave reviews from the start.
Some authors never saw their books score widespread acclaim—or even get published at all.
Humiliating powerful people was not a key to success.
Monsters have always represented societal fears, but narrative art also casts doubt on whether we fully understand our monsters — and their slayers.
Some classic books, like Mark Twain’s "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," remain controversial to this day.
What is Captain America doing in ancient Mesopotamia?
Jules Verne wrote about gasoline-powered vehicles, weapons of mass destruction, and global warming more than a century ago.
Take a trip through these master-crafted fantasy societies and ask yourself: Could I actually live there?
"Painfully forced" is how one contemporary critic described Fitzgerald's writing style.
Would you want to live in any of these places?
Art criticism is inherently subjective. Still, many critics have tried to make a case for why some of the world’s most celebrated books are in fact terribly written.
Most popular songs are about love and heartache. But some great songs — albeit underrated and perhaps a bit weird — are about the cities we love.
Without Étienne-Joseph-Théophile Thoré, the genius of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer would have been lost to time.
"Tristram Shandy" trolled its way to fame.
"All moments past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist."
Foster your own moments of mystery.
Because Dylan “samples and digests” songs from the past, he has been accused of plagiarism. But imitatio isn't the same.
Many were expecting extremism survivor and free speech advocate Salman Rushdie to take home the Nobel Prize in Literature, but Annie Ernaux beat him to it.
Detective fiction reveals how a particular society or time period looks at crime and criminal justice.
We imagine and debate the inner lives of literary characters, knowing there can be no truth about their real motives or beliefs. Could our own inner lives also be works of fiction?
Socrates lived during a time when people did not strive to separate fact from fiction. So how much of what we know about Socrates is true?
The Siege of Leningrad lasted over two years and claimed nearly a million lives. It also inspired writers to record the bleak conditions in which they lived.
People around the world, mostly Generation Z, are obsessed with the look and feel of gothic, elitist universities. Why?
Famished, not famous: retrace Orwell’s hunger days, when he was one of the city’s legion of poor foreigners.
Many of his criticisms ring true today.