classic literature
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What is intelligence? For the longest time, Western literature has suggested it may be a liability
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What classic literature says about the challenges of refugees fleeing persecution
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Marquis de Sade wrote violent pornographic fiction. I translated his only gothic novel into English
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Why have we lost the spirit of questioning handed down by the Vedas, the Upanishads, the epics?
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Voltaire’s ‘Candide’ talks to us eloquently in this era of the pandemic and wild conspiracy theories
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In the Shakespearean world, Hamlet is a ‘villain of genius’. Here’s why
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The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Glimpses of a 17th century lockdown, and a mirror held up to ours
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Lockdown reading: Five tips on how to read Shakespeare beyond the theatre and classroom
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Nature’s rhythm and rhyme: Remembering William Wordsworth 250 years since his birth
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In ancient Greek philosophy, political leaders were seen as healers in times of crisis
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How illustrations have kept the magical appeal of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ alive for successive generations
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In the age of Brexit, to describe Chaucer as ‘English to the core’ is to misrepresent him
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How Mirza Ghalib’s ghazals traveled to America and became a part of the country’s poetic tradition
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Why I’ve collected 15 copies (and counting) of ‘Wuthering Heights’ for my private library
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A hodgepodge of scumbags, orgies, and the breakdown of society: Also known as Juvenal’s ‘Satires’
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Why ‘The Water Margin’, China’s outlaw novel from the 14th century, keeps getting modern versions
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Charles Dickens popularised the traditional Christmas meal but what did people feast on before that?
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What makes Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’ an enduring favourite over nearly 100 years?
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When Tolkien depicted orcs in ‘Lord of the Rings’, was he being racist rather than imaginative?
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How ‘Little Women’ was shaped by the stifling principles of Louisa May Alcott’s father
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Before Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, there was Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘Herland’
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‘Little Women’ at 150: How I got over my literary grudge against Amy March
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The first English novel was about talking cats and its author had to keep it hidden for 10 years
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The characters in Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ made connections with each other much like we do on Facebook
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Over 150 years later, Maupassant’s fiction is remembered for the questions it asked of morality
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How ‘Wuthering Heights’ became associated with a long-standing myth of incest in the Bronte family
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Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ isn’t just a poem about man and god. It was the first ‘scientific epic’
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‘Kaikeyi to Dasharath’: How Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s radical poetry reworked the narrative
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Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ at 80: Why we will always return to Manderley
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Fifty years later, Shrilal Shukla’s ‘Raag Darbari’ is being reborn as modern Indian literature
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Turning 200: The ‘Scottish Jane Austen’ was much more satirical about marriage than the real one
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This Ramanand Sagar short story shows he was not only a film director (and the maker of ‘Ramayana’)
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Jane Austen’s greatest novel is 200 years old. No, it’s not ‘Pride and Prejudice’
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Shirley Jackson’s novels are eerie literary fiction. She left the best for the last
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Five pre-modern Hindi classics that poet Anamika wants you to read
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The 'Arthaśāstra' is a manual of statecraft. It is neither a Hindu nor a moral treatise
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Read dead people. (Or, why John Berger matters to you who are on Instagram and Snapchat and Shots)
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Charles Dickens in California in 2016? It's not as far-fetched as you might think
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'Crime and Punishment' is 150, but it has never been more eco-politically relevant than in 2016
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Watch: Writer Margaret Atwood explains how Shakespeare could help prisoners
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How a thousand-year-old Sanskrit love poem has travelled the world
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Google was right to remember Premchand (with a doodle) and so should we
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A reminder: Panini didn't destroy lingual diversities with his Sanskrit grammar, he unified them
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Watch Sheldon Pollock answering his own question, 'What is Indian knowledge good for?'
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At 60, 'The Room on the Roof' is back with gorgeous illustrations
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To Kill A Mockingbird gets a sequel: what will Scout do now?