Shmoop Blog: Much Ado About Shmooping

2 teachers in Palm Beach, Florida demonstrate and review Shmoop. Lee Keller says, “this is one of the best educational sites I’ve ever seen.”

This Halloween, scare up some fun with these history- and lit-inspired costumes:

1. Put on a three-corner hat and cape, pull a cardboard boat around your waist, and pose as George Washington crossing the Delaware during the American Revolution.

2. Dress up as Benjamin Franklin with a kite and singed hair. Be careful around the French maids.

3. Pretend to hitchhike as Christopher Columbus with a sign that says “India or bust.”

4. Dress up like Abe Lincoln – with two tickets in his breast pocket.

5. Test people’s knowledge of US history trivia by putting on a turn-of-the-century suit, carrying some bags of fake money, and painting your nose purple. Yes, JP Morgan really did have a purple nose.

6. Try a scandalous costume for a trio: Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy.

7. Wear a suit and a Richard Nixon mask. Carry a hallowed-out pumpkin filled with film. You’re reenacting the “Pumpkin Papers,” in which future President Richard Nixon used to take down Soviet spy Alger Hiss in one of the Cold War’s most notorious espionage cases.

8. Dress up as Betsy Ross with a half-finished American flag. Include a rainbow flag, a pirate flag, and yellow smiley face among your book of samples.

9. Sport your finest 1920s-style outfit, a plastic Tommy gun, a cigar, and your best Al Capone accent. Rave about the merits of the 18th Amendment and Prohibition.

10. Roll up your sleeves and get ready to flex those guns. Rosie the Riveter is one of the best “girl power” costumes in history. (World War II: Home Front)

Ten Literature & Poetry-Inspired Halloween Costumes

1. Bust out the Photoshop to make an “oil painting” of yourself aged about 50 years. Frame it, put on your best Victorian-style outfit, and trick-o-treat as Dorian Gray. (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

2. Go on a hunt after your friend who is dressed as a white whale with bloodshot eyes. Chase the whale around the streets with a toy harpoon in hand. Rant and rave to strangers about catching the whale. (Moby-Dick)

3. Dress up like a grizzled old sailor, rave unintelligibly, and hang a fake albatross around your neck à la “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

4. Put on a collared shirt, a tie, a long coat, and a red hunting hat. Carry a record under your arm and collect candy as Holden Caulfield. (The Catcher in the Rye)

5. See who gets the Scout Finch reference when you walk around barefoot with a banged-up ham costume and knife slash through the back. (To Kill a Mockingbird)

6. Put on a straw hat and some ratty old clothes, pull a cardboard canoe around your waist, and try your luck as Huckleberry Finn. Don’t be afeared to use *some* Antebellum Missouri slang. (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

7. Pay your dues to George Orwell by dressing up like a pig brandishing a liquor bottle and insisting that “two legs are better than four.” (Animal Farm)

8. Put on a long, plain dress and plaster a scarlet “A” to the front. Get your friend to dress like a priest. (The Scarlet Letter)

9. Dress up like Lady Macbeth and try to scrub imagined bloodstains off your hands. Rinse, repeat. (Macbeth)

10. For a truly terrifying Halloween costume, give your kid brother face paint, some tattered rags, a conch shell, and a (fake) pig head on a stake. Don’t let him see that you’ve got glasses. (The Lord of the Flies) 

Share Your Costumes and Ideas

• Post your ideas in the Comments, below
• Post your photos on our Facebook Page

October is LGBT* History Month and Shmoop invites you to meet LGBT characters and writers throughout literature and history. Check out the following reads for some different perspectives on LGBT history.

*(lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender)

In Shmoop Literature

Giovanni’s Room: A controversial semi-autobiographical novel about an African-American man coming to terms with his homosexuality… in pre-Civil-Rights-Movement, nineteen-fifties America. Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Merchant of Venice: Shakespeare’s classic play about two merchants and a pound of flesh raises questions about why Antonio (one merchant) gives up so much for his beloved friend Bassanio.

The Color Purple: There’s something to be said for an extremely unfortunate black woman making the most of her situation by standing up to her dirtbag husband. Oh yeah, and running off with his mistress.

Brideshead Revisited: Meet Anthony Blanche, the literary forefather of hilariously over-the-top dandies who you might meet today on Ugly Betty or Glee.

Orlando: A classic love story about a man who falls for an androgynous Russian princess only to have his heart broken, move to Constantinople, spontaneously transform into a woman, run away with a band of gypsies, and ultimately return to England and marry a sea captain, all in the space of 4 short centuries.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: The story of a repressed man struggling with his gay identity. Interestingly, the film version (starring gay icon Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman), repressed the gay storyline due to a 1930s law (the Hays Code) that prohibited any mention of homosexuality in motion pictures.

In Shmoop Poetry

Howl: All we can say here is wowsa. It’s been fifty years, but gay Beat poet Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” hasn’t lost any of its shock value – or its cultural significance. The poem’s graphic depictions of sex stirred a legal battle that launched the Beat movement into the public consciousness.

In Shmoop Biography

Tennessee Williams: Growing up gay in the American South in the 1930s wasn’t easy. Williams often explored sexual identity, repression, and homophobic elements of society in his Pulitzer Prize-winning career as a playwright.

Virginia Woolf: Woolf explored themes of bisexuality and open relationships both in her writing (see Orlando) and in her personal life.

In Shmoop Civics

Equal Protection: Wanna know why women can’t be drafted? Or why California laws about having sex with minors used to be more stringent for men than for women? Or why state laws affecting the LGBT community must meet fewer requirements than those affecting women or African-Americans? Then take a look at the history of Equal Protection and its sometimes unequal application.

‘Tis the season of the ultimate heart-thumping adrenaline rush. Ghost stories, haunted houses, Children of the Corn. We’ve got the literary epinephrine that will make this a most memorable Halloween.

Edgar Allan Poe
This Halloween, take the time to meet the madness behind the method: the drugs, the alcohol, the womanizing, and the mental instability behind one of the greatest scary-story tellers of all time. On a much creepier note, Poe also had Jerry Lee Lewis beat by about a century when he married his 13-year old cousin, Virgina, at the age of 27.

Dracula
The classic tale of Count Dracula is so tattooed on our culture (see: Sesame Street) that we sometimes forget to, you know, actually read the thing. We even forget that the tale draws on folklore about a wealthy count whose greed symbolically sucked the life force out of the peasant class. Horror story and social commentary all in one? Delicious.

Frankenstein
You know that pale green, square-headed, blood-drooling, zombie-like monster you always see at Halloween? Well, his name isn’t Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein is actually the brilliant Swiss scientist who creates the creepy creature. But when you read the book, ask yourself: who is the real monster?

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The classic tale of a well-respected man who, upon drinking a strange brew in the evening, turns into a different person and goes crazy all night.

The Turn of the Screw
If you’re a fan of The Shining, The Omen, Children of the Corn, The Sixth Sense, or The Others, you’ll be glad to know that this story gave rise to the Creepy Children genre. Published in 1898, it tells about a nanny who may be the victim of a haunting. Or, she might be a deranged murderer. OR, the kids might just be two royal pains in the ass. You decide.

The Tell-Tale Heart
Edgar Allen Poe could spin a scary story like nobody’s business. This tale is a psychological masterpiece about the meticulous process of killing an old man.

The Red Room
The Gothic counterpart to Cream’s “The White Room,” only with more ghosts and fewer lava lamps.

The Picture of Dorian Gray
If you think the photo albums tucked away in your attic are incriminating, get a load of this guy. Dorian Gray sells his soul to Satan so that over time, his portrait ages while he remains young and beautiful and oh-so very wicked. In a very Voldemort-ey turn of events, however, he discovers that if you put your life force into an object, you might want to keep an eye on it.

“The Raven”
The classic tale of a lonely man whose imagination runs wild when a raven flies into his house. (Quoth the reader: Shut the door!!)

“Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Speaking of birds that will scare the crap out of you, the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a complicated poem about a sailor that endures the wrath of the sea by shooting his ship’s good-luck albatross. Time to re-think that B.B. gun.

“My Last Duchess”
Buckle up for a wild ride as this unnamed Duke shows you the portrait of his former Duchess, who got the axe – probably literally – for “smiling” too much. And you thought modern art was scary.

“Porphyria’s Lover”
Here’s another one for the ladies. This poem is about a man who strangles his lover with her own hair and then spends the night admiring her corpse. The fact that it is written in the first person gives it that extra something, so be sure to read it to your friends.

Twilight
The first in the hit series of about high school, first love, and… vampirism? Upon arriving at a new school, Bella Swan meets the mysterious Edward Cullen, who’s gorgeous, freakishly strong, and happens to be a vampire. A forbidden (and logistically-problematic) relationship ensues. Think Romeo and Juliet, except one of them’s already dead and drinks blood.

New Moon
In Book Two of the Twilight series, Edward mysteriously dumps Bella, leaving us to agonize over the will-he’s and won’t-she’s of what could be called teen love (if it weren’t for the fact that Edward is a century years old).

What’s on your list? Add your suggestions below in the comments.

Drumroll please. Shmoop introduces our 8th subject,
Shmoop Music.

The same website that compared 19th century literature to Gossip Girl and called Emily Dickinson a packrat takes on Kurt Cobain and John Lennon.

Remember VH1’s Pop-Up Video and how sweet it was to snack on juicy trivia as you watched a music video? Shmoop Music takes things to a whole new level. Whet your whistle on some of the most influential songs of all time. Drink in the songs you know and can’t get enough of. We offer shocking backstories and gritty details, and we explore the meaning of the lyrics, the music, and the songwriting.

Music is a delicious treat for finicky young intellectual palates. Music can help your students find an appetite for poetry, literature, and history. What better way to assuage student fears about poetry than to begin with an analysis of Bob Marley’s lyrics?

Don’t See Your Favorite? We’re Just Getting Started. Shmoop Takes Requests

• Subterranean Homesick Blues (Bob Dylan)
• Concrete Jungle (Bob Marley and the Wailers)
• Livin’ on a Prayer (Bon Jovi)
• Born in the USA (Bruce Springsteen)
• Life on Mars (David Bowie)
• Welcome to the Jungle (Guns N’ Roses)
• Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix)
• Blaze of Glory (Jon Bon Jovi)
• Through the Wire (Kanye West)
• Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
• Famous Blue Raincoat (Leonard Cohen)
• Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
• Paper Planes (M.I.A.)
• Like a Prayer (Madonna)
• Kids (MGMT)
• Head Like a Hole (Nine Inch Nails)
• Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
• When Doves Cry (Prince)
• Fake Plastic Trees (Radiohead)
• Paranoid Android (Radiohead)
• Samson (Regina Spektor)
• I Am the Walrus (The Beatles)
• I Want to Hold Your Hand (The Beatles)
• Roxanne (The Police)
• Heroin (The Velvet Underground)
• Free Fallin’ (Tom Petty)
• One (U2)

Letters like this make the hard work worthwhile. Stick with it, Noel!

“I just wanted to say that I just found your site, and MAN DID I FIND IT LATE! this website is my dream come true, I’m 20 years old, started reading and getting into classics at about 18-19, I found a new love and it changed my life. Now I’m giving myself an education on all things dealing with writing, trying to break down, analyze and compare novels, plays, movies, it’s like my life project right now. I’m not going to college (yet) so for now I have to do all this on my own. I love this site because i don’t even have to gather any of this info myself (as I have been doing), and what’s the icing on the cake? the language used; funny, down to earth, great for a young guy like me just getting started in the reading world. I can’t tell you how much this site means to me, but I’m changing my reading list to include all the books you cover here first, so I can compare my notes with yours. Thanks again I really appreciate this site and anything I can do to help, well you have my email address.”

- Noel

Have something to say to Shmoop? Drop us a line on our feedback page.

• 34 new learning guides today on Shmoop
• More than 850 Shmoop guides and counting
• More than two times the Literature and nearly three times the Poetry since our Nov. 2008 launch
• What’s next? Keep your dial tuned.

Shmoop Met iPhone and iPod touch: We’re Smitten

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New Right Now: A Bumper Crop of Learning Guides

21 New in Shmoop Literature:

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
• Agamemnon, by Aeschylus
• The Bacchae, by Euripides
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s, by Truman Capote
• The Canterbury Tales: The Second Nun’s Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer
• The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath’s Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer
• “Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver
• “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period,” by J.D. Salinger
• Dracula, by Bram Stoker
• “Dry September,” by William Faulkner
• An Enemy of the People, by Henrik Ibsen
• Henry IV, Part 2, by William Shakespeare
• The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros
• The Joys of Motherhood, by Buchi Emecheta
• Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen
• The Metamorphoses, by Ovid
• “The Scarlet Ibis,” by James Hurst
• Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
• The Trial, by Franz Kafka
• The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston
• A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

2 New in Shmoop US History:

• The 1950s
• Native American History

11 New in Shmoop Biography:

• Dante Alighieri
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Emily Dickinson
• Ralph Ellison
• Robert Frost
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Langston Hughes
• Herman Melville
• Edgar Allan Poe
• William Shakespeare
• William Wordsworth

Today, the United States celebrates “Constitution Day” – the 222nd anniversary of the signing of the US Constitution. From our brand new subject, Shmoop Civics, we cooked up some Constitution-flavored snacks for your hungry brains.

• Ben Franklin was the oldest delegate to the Constitutional Convention (aged 87). Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey was the youngest (27).
• During WWII, the Constitution was moved to Fort Knox for safekeeping.
• The US Constitution is both the oldest and shortest constitution used by any representative government in the world today. India’s constitution is 25 times longer.
• The original copy of the Constitution was handwritten on just four big sheets of paper.
• Rhode Island boycotted the Constitutional Convention entirely and did not have a representative sign the document

Check out the Constitution unit in Shmoop Civics for more Constitution trivia, plus deep analysis, dates, quotes, and our section-by-section Constitution summary.

A rare typo on the front page of WSJ.com (spotted by one of Shmoop’s eagle-eye editors) puts the LOL in Revolution.

WSJ.com Typo Makes Us LOL