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In Maya Angelou's poem "Africa," she compares Africa's pain and struggles to a woman being brutalized. Why does she do this? Is it to draw sympathy...

We're not sure if good ol' Shakespeare would endorse The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, but that's not going to stop us from hosting themed viewing...

Why did the editor give Chapter 21 of A Clockwork Orange the axe? Was it because he wanted to leave the reader hanging? Or did he realize Americans...

Today we aren't looking for the most virtuous person, or most likeable, but rather the most disturbing. Will it be Echo, the nymph who is doomed to...

Meet Emma Woodhouse of Jane Austen's Emma. She’s a rich young woman with a good social life living in 18th-century England. We bet she has an aw...

The ultimate young-kid-lost-in-the-wilderness book. And yes, there are a lot of them.

Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage about the Civil War not long after the war had ended. And get this: he didn't even fight in the war. W...

Look, we get that you really like that one selfie with the makeup filter, but don't get this carried away about it, okay? Also, put your tongue bac...

What's the deal with "Nectar in a Sieve"? Shmoop amongst yourselves.

Mariners back in the day sure knew how to bust a rime.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold. In our opinion, however, it should be popped into the microwave for about 30-45 seconds.

A dead man floats to shore. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke or a horror movie, but wait: it gets weirder. He's super tall, super good-looki...

We'd all like to think our families would accept us if we turned into giant bugs, but for Gregor Samsa, that was not quite the case.

How did Scrooge go from being naughty to nice so quickly, and why? (Hint: contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with the ghost of Santa...

This video defines utopias and dystopias, and investigates how a utopia might become a dystopia. Can a seemingly perfect world actually be a dystop...

Love potions are tricky business (not that we've ever tried using one, of course). They can make you fall in love with the wrong person…or, in th...