Literature
16 articles-
What Is Life?
An astrobiologist finds the heart of his work in a new novel by Richard Powers. -
Literature Should Be Taught Like Science
This renegade professor says literature is a machine that accelerates the human brain. -
Why Computers Will Never Write Good Novels
The power of narrative flows only from the human brain. -
Who Said Nobody Read Isaac Newton?
It’s a myth that legendary works in science aren’t read. -
Only Disconnect! A Pandemic Reading of E.M. Forster
The astonishing relevance of the British writer’s story, “The Machine Stops.”
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Al Gore Does His Best Ralph Waldo Emerson
The former vice president reads the transcendentalist poet—and reminds us of one.
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God Created Consciousness in Fiction
Given his grandeur, pettiness, and complexity, and his capacity for introspection, he’s the major exception to the flatness of ancient characters—God.Illustration by Humphrey King / Flickr Many modern novels do something that the earliest literature sometimes seems incapable of doing—representing the inner life of the individual, in all its complexity. The history of literature has […]
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Why Doesn’t Ancient Fiction Talk About Feelings?
Literature’s evolution has reflected and spurred the growing complexity of society.
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The Book No One Read
Why Stanislaw Lem’s futurism deserves attention. -
Edgar Allan Poe, Part-Time Cosmologist/Big-Bang Philosopher
A daguerrotype of Poe made several months before his death in 1849 During the waning months of 1847, Edgar Allan Poe sat at his desk with a tortoiseshell cat draped around his shoulders and dreamed the universe into being. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Poe believed the book […] -
In Science Fiction, We Are Never Home
Where technology leads to exile and yearning. -
Literature by the Numbers
Critical reading gets even better when you use your computer. -
Why People Love to Get Lost in Books
In the huge range of different human cultural inclinations, one of the most widespread is a fondness for stories. We just love to get lost in a good book or movie. When we do, we tend to ignore where we are and become completely absorbed in the story. Psychologists call this “transportation,” and have conducted […]
