When battles raged in ancient cities, their rocks blazed so brightly that they could be reoriented according to Earth's magnetic field.

"Tristram Shandy" trolled its way to fame.

"All moments past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist."

From Atlantis to Thule, these mythical locales have captivated people's imaginations for centuries.

Today’s scary clowns are not a divergence from tradition, but a return to it.

Because Dylan “samples and digests” songs from the past, he has been accused of plagiarism. But imitatio isn't the same.

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Forget about Tinkerbell.

One award was for a medical procedure that incapacitated thousands of people.

These hard-to-finish books are still worth the effort.

Books that were rarely taught in 1963, when baby boomers were students, became classics when those same boomers were teachers and parents.

Literature's first utopia shows how far we've come.

There are nearly 100 towns named "Troy."

Following the advent of human space flight, NASA began naming missions after children of Zeus.

Fire-breathing dragons may represent chaos and the human impulse to conquer that threat.

What Odysseus needed from his father was something more important: the comfort of being a son.

Like some cold poison creeping up our veins, there's a frisson in the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

Here's your gateway to enjoying the best of literature.

According to Tolkien, fantasy requires a deep imagination known as "sub-creation." And the genre reflects a fundamental truth of being human.

There is much more to the Kama Sutra than just sex. It's a guide to anyone wanting more pleasure in life, however they take it.

By toppling medieval Europe’s mightiest political power, the Protestant Reformation ushered in a new age of freedom, religious and otherwise.

“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?” Steinbeck writes.

Modern applications of Stoicism show up in unexpected places, from the latest techniques in psychotherapy to texts on Christian theology.

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?

War is peace.

Vladimir Putin adores Fyodor Dostoevsky. A close reading of the legendary author’s texts reveals the feeling might have been mutual. 

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.

Despite losing most of his extended family to the guillotine, Tocqueville grew up to become a fervent supporter of democratic revolution.

The author of classics like "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Sun Also Rises" is known and loved for his simple yet effective writing style. Here’s how to imitate it.