The marriage of Orpheus, the greatest of all poets and musicians, to Eurydice, a wood nymph, was heralded as the perfect union. Anyone could tell the couple was deeply in love. So when their wedding ceremony ended in Eurydice's untimely...

Before the sun never set on the British Empire; before Genghis Khan swept the steppe; before Rome extended its influence to encircle the Mediterranean Sea; there was ancient Assyria. Considered by historians to be the first true empire,...

King Arthur has risen again and again in our collective imagination, along with his retinue of knights, Guinevere, the Round Table, Camelot, and of course Excalibur. But where do these stories come from, and is there any truth to them?...

An encounter with a man-eating giant. A sorceress who turns men into pigs. A long-lost king taking back his throne. On their own, any of these make great stories. But each is just one episode in the "Odyssey," a 12,000-line poem spanning...

Like Beat writers who composed their work by shredding and reassembling scraps of writing, artist Jean-Michel Basquiat used similar techniques to remix his materials. Pulling in splintered anatomy, reimagined historical scenes and...

More than a century after first emerging into the fogbound, gaslit streets of Victorian London, Sherlock Holmes is universally recognizable. And yet many of his most recognizable features don't appear in Arthur Conan Doyle's original...

The prisoner strapped under a descending pendulum blade. A raven who refuses to leave the narrator's chamber. A beating heart buried under the floorboards. Poe's macabre and innovative stories of gothic horror have left a timeless mark...

If you read a poem and feel moved by it, but then find out it was actually written by a computer, would you feel differently about the experience? Would you think that the computer had expressed itself and been creative, or would you...

In which John Green teaches you about Homer's Odyssey. If it was Homer's If Homer was even real. Anyway, that stuff doesn't really matter. John teaches you the classic, by which I mean classical, epic poem, the Odyssey. The Journey of...

Explore William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, “Hamlet,” a play about conspiracy, deception and the tragic consequences of indecision. -- “Who’s there?” Whispered in the dark, this question begins a tale of conspiracy, deception and...

In which a series about literature, which is wanting of an episode on Jane Austen, gets the first of two episodes. It's Pride and Prejudice, everybody! John Green talks about Pride and Prejudice as a product of Regency England, gives you...

The point of fiction is to cast a spell, a momentary illusion that you are living in the world of the story. But as a writer, how do you suck your readers into your stories in this way? Nalo Hopkinson shares some tips for how to use...

What can some of literature's most famous heroes teach us? From the epic hero (like Beowulf) to the tragic hero (like Oedipus), each has something distinctive to share. April Gudenrath describes the many faces of the fictional hero --...

Throughout the history of mankind, the subject of identity has sent poets to the blank page, philosophers to the agora and seekers to the oracles. These murky waters of abstract thinking are tricky to navigate, so it's probably fitting...

In which John Green teaches you about Harper Lee's famous (and only) novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. John will cover a bit about Harper Lee's personal life, (seeing as this novel has some autobiographical elements) and her long association...

An animated interpretation of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken"

At face value, the lines between verbal irony, sarcasm, and compliments can be blurry. After all, the phrase 'That looks nice' could be all three depending on the circumstances. In the final of a three part series on irony, Christopher...

You're in a movie theater, watching the new horror flick. The audience knows something that the main character does not. The audience sees the character's actions are not in his best interest. What's that feeling -- the one that makes...

Leaps and bounds separate that which is ironic and that which many people simply say is ironic. Christopher Warner wants to set the record straight: Something is ironic if and only if it is the exact opposite of what you would expect.

What trials unite not only Harry Potter or Frodo Baggins but many of literature's most interesting heroes? And what do ordinary people have in common with these literary heroes? Matthew Winkler takes us step-by-step through the crucial...

Few individuals have influenced the world and many of today's thinkers like Plato. He created the first Western university and was teacher to Ancient Greece's greatest minds, including Aristotle. But even he wasn't perfect. Along with...

In her Auntie An-mei’s home, Jing-Mei reluctantly takes her seat at the eastern corner of the mahjong table. At the north, south and west corners are her aunties, long-time members of the Joy Luck Club. This gathering is the point of...

Reading slowly -- with her finger running beneath the words, even when she was taught not to -- has led Jacqueline Woodson to a life of writing books to be savored. In a lyrical talk, she invites us to slow down and appreciate stories...

"You're a fishmonger!" By taking a closer look at Shakespeare's words--specifically his insults--we see why he is known as a master playwright whose works transcend time and appeal to audiences all over the world.