The invention of close reading. By transforming quotations into evidence, close reading served as way to turn postwar criticism into a specialized knowledge. But what if we treated it more as an art ...

W hen I was an undergraduate at Amherst College, it was a rite of passage for all English majors to discover that they had entirely misunderstood Robert Frost’s most famous poem “The Road Not Taken” ( ...

Lindsey Ellefson is Lifehacker’s Features Editor. She currently covers study and productivity hacks, as well as household and digital decluttering, and oversees the freelancers on the sex and ...