Interesting facts I have learned in class so far

Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, was accused of rape in 1380. This is weird, given his generally empowering view of the female gender.

"Satyagraha," Gandhi's program of passive resistance, actually means "truth-force," and is, like most foreign words in my South Asian Lit class, impossible to pronounce. (Suh-tee-gruh, with the last "ha" part kind of swallowed.)

A literary journal may be considered successful if its circulation hits 2,000. By comparison, The New Yorker has a circulation of over 500,000, and Sports Illustrated of over 2,000,000.

Hindi, one of the national languages of India, and Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, are essentially the same language. They just use different writing systems.

Nietzsche was not an anti-Semite, or at least not one of particular vehemence. After he died, his crazy anti-Semitic sister edited all his manuscripts to fit her agenda. Also interesting: Nietzsche went insane ten years before he died. It was either syphillis or a tumor. Sadly, this does not explain his extremely weird writings.