Natural language formal grammars

Nowadays what's the most advanced fully formalized formal grammar for a natural language?

Short answer : For a single natural language, the English Resource Grammar (ERG)—currently at its May 2025 release—is generally regarded as the most advanced, fully formalised grammar that actually runs on a computer. It is hand-built in the HPSG formalism, covers 90-plus % of open-domain English, and produces logic-ready Minimal Recursion Semantics (MRS) representations. (Delph-in)

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Why the ERG stands out

Aspect	What the ERG offers
Theoretical foundation	Head-Driven Phrase-Structure Grammar with a rich type hierarchy of 1 100+ lexical/phrased-structure types
Coverage & precision	~35 000 lexemes, ~200 syntactic rules; parses ≈ 94 % of Wall-Street-Journal sentences and > 90 % of contemporary web text while staying linguistically faithful (iafisher.com)
Semantics	Direct compositional output in MRS, compatible with downstream inference, QA, RTE and MT pipelines (Delph-in)
Tool chain	Ships as a binary grammar (“erg-2025-x86-64-0.9.34.dat”) for the ACE parser and for LKB/pyDelphin; also accessible through a REST API (Delph-in)
Sustained maintenance	Active DELPH-IN community, annual releases; latest tagged 2025

Because every rule, feature structure and semantic predicate is machine-checkable, ERG is what linguists call a precision grammar: if it accepts a sentence, it guarantees an internally consistent syntactic and semantic analysis. That property makes it the go-to resource for deep NLP experiments and for testing linguistic hypotheses.

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How does it compare to other large formal grammars?

Project	Formalism	Languages	Maturity & scope
ParGram / XLE grammars	Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG)	≈ 10 major languages (EN, FR, DE, JA…)	High-quality parallel grammars but smaller coverage per language; used mainly in grammar-checking research (iafisher.com)
GF Resource Grammar Library (RGL)	Type-theoretical GF	45 + languages	Elegant multilingual framework for generation & controlled NL; not yet as deep or wide-coverage per language as ERG (grammaticalframework.org)
OpenCCG / CCGBank grammar	Combinatory Categorial Grammar	English	Grammar induced from CCGBank; broad but automatically derived, with less hand-verified precision than ERG (GitHub)
Resource Grammars (Jacy, SRG, etc.)	HPSG	Japanese, Spanish, Norwegian…	Built with the same methodology as ERG; none yet match ERG’s size or stability (e.g. Spanish RG revival 2024)

In short, those projects show that formalised, executable grammars are feasible for many languages, but the ERG remains the flagship in terms of depth, breadth, and semantic integration.

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Take-away

If you need a fully formal, broad-coverage, linguistically rigorous grammar that you can parse and generate with today, the ERG is the state of the art. For cross-lingual work, look toward the GF RGL or the ParGram LFG suite, but be prepared for more limited coverage or weaker semantic output.

Division Algorithm for Polynomials

Prove this: Let f(x), g(x) be two polynomials with deg(f) ≤ deg(g). Then there are unique polynomials q(x), r(x) such that g(x) = q(x)f(x) + r(x), where deg(r) < deg(f).

Proof (Division Algorithm for Polynomials)

Let $f(x)$ and $g(x)$ be polynomials over a field (or integral domain) $K$, with

$$\mathrm{deg}(f)\le \mathrm{deg}(g).$$

We will show:

1. Existence: there exist polynomials $q(x)$ and $r(x)$ such that

   $$g(x)=q(x)f(x)+r(x),$$

   with $\mathrm{deg}(r)<\mathrm{deg}(f)$.

2. Uniqueness: this representation is unique.

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1. Existence

We proceed by induction on $n=\mathrm{deg}(g)$.

• Base case: If $\mathrm{deg}(g)<\mathrm{deg}(f)$, then we may simply take

  $$q(x)=0,r(x)=g(x).$$

  Clearly $g=0\cdot f+g$, and $\mathrm{deg}(r)=\mathrm{deg}(g)<\mathrm{deg}(f)$.

• Inductive step: Suppose the statement holds for all polynomials of degree less than $n$, and let $\mathrm{deg}(g)=n\ge \mathrm{deg}(f)$. Write

  $$f(x)=a_m{x}^m+\dots ,g(x)=b_n{x}^n+\dots$$

  with $a_m,b_n\ne 0$. Since $n\ge m$, set

  $$t(x)=\frac{b_n}{a_m}{x}^{n-m}.$$

  Then $\mathrm{deg}(t(x)f(x))=n$, and its leading coefficient matches that of $g(x)$. Consider

  $$g_1(x)=g(x)-t(x)f(x).$$

  By construction, $\mathrm{deg}(g_1)<n$. Now by the induction hypothesis applied to $g_1$ (whose degree is $<n$), there exist polynomials $q_1(x)$ and $r(x)$ with

  $$g_1(x)=q_1(x)f(x)+r(x),\mathrm{deg}(r)<\mathrm{deg}(f).$$

  Hence

  $$g(x)=t(x)f(x)+g_1(x)=t(x)f(x)+(q_1(x)f(x)+r(x))=(t(x)+q_1(x))f(x)+r(x).$$

  Setting $q(x)=t(x)+q_1(x)$ gives the desired representation for $g$, with $\mathrm{deg}(r)<\mathrm{deg}(f)$.

By induction, such $q(x)$ and $r(x)$ always exist.

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2. Uniqueness

Suppose there are two representations

$$g(x)=q_1(x)f(x)+r_1(x),g(x)=q_2(x)f(x)+r_2(x),$$

with $\mathrm{deg}(r_1),\mathrm{deg}(r_2)<\mathrm{deg}(f)$. Subtracting gives

$$0=(q_1(x)-q_2(x))f(x)+(r_1(x)-r_2(x)).$$

Rearrange:

$$(q_1(x)-q_2(x))f(x)=-(r_1(x)-r_2(x)).$$

• The left side is a multiple of $f(x)$, so if $q_1\ne q_2$ then $\mathrm{deg}((q_1-q_2)f)\ge \mathrm{deg}(f)$.
• The right side is $r_2(x)-r_1(x)$, whose degree is strictly less than $\mathrm{deg}(f)$.

The only way a nonzero polynomial of degree $\ge \mathrm{deg}(f)$ can equal one of degree $<\mathrm{deg}(f)$ is if both are the zero polynomial. Hence

$$q_1(x)-q_2(x)=0,r_1(x)-r_2(x)=0,$$

so $q_1=q_2$ and $r_1=r_2$. This proves uniqueness.

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Together, these two parts establish the Division Algorithm for polynomials: for any $f(x)$ and $g(x)$ with $\mathrm{deg}(f)\le \mathrm{deg}(g)$, there exist unique polynomials $q(x)$ and $r(x)$ such that

$$g(x)=q(x)f(x)+r(x),\mathrm{deg}(r)<\mathrm{deg}(f).$$

$◼$

Motivation for decomposition into even and odd functions

Every function can be expressed uniquely as the sum of an even function and an odd function, like so: let E(x) be (f(x)+f(-x))/2, and let O(x) be (f(x)-f(-x))/2. Then E(x) is even, O(x) is odd, and f(x) = E(x) + O(x).

But what’s the point of doing this?

Decomposing any function $f$ into its even and odd parts

$$E(x)=\frac{f(x)+f(-x)}{2},O(x)=\frac{f(x)-f(-x)}{2},f=E+O$$

is more than just a neat algebraic trick. Here’s why it’s so useful:

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1. Exploiting symmetry in integrals

• Odd integrals vanish: if $O$ is odd, then

  $${\int }_{-a}^{a}O(x)dx=0.$$

  So

  $${\int }_{-a}^{a}f(x)dx={\int }_{-a}^{a}E(x)dx+\underset{0}{\underbrace{{\int }_{-a}^{a}O(x)dx}}=2{\int }_0^{a}E(x)dx.$$

  You’ve halved your work by reducing to the even part only.

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2. Fourier series simplification

• An arbitrary periodic $f$ has a Fourier series

  $$f(x)=a_0+\sum _{n=1}^{\mathrm{\infty }}[a_n\cos (nx)+b_n\sin (nx)].$$

• The cosine terms are the even part; the sine terms are the odd part.

• You can immediately tell which coefficients vanish if you know $f$ is purely even or purely odd.

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3. Power-series (Taylor) clarity

• Expanding about zero, an even function has only even powers:

  $$E(x)=c_0+c_2{x}^2+c_4{x}^4+\cdots ,$$

  while an odd function has only odd powers:

  $$O(x)=c_{1}x+c_3{x}^3+\cdots .$$

• Decomposition helps identify which terms must be present or zero in your series.

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4. Solving differential equations

• Many differential operators commute with the “flip” $x\mapsto -x$, so they preserve evenness/oddness.
• You can split a boundary-value or initial-value problem into two simpler problems—one on the even subspace, one on the odd—often halving the complexity.

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5. Linear-algebra viewpoint

• The space of all functions (say, on $\mathbb{R}$) decomposes as

  $$\{\text{even}\}\oplus \{\text{odd}\}.$$

• Projection onto each subspace is exactly $E$ and $O$. This is a concrete example of projecting onto complementary subspaces in any vector space.

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6. Practical computations & modeling

• In physics and engineering, boundary conditions often enforce symmetry. If you know a solution must be even (or odd), you can discard half the domain or simplify the ansatz immediately.
• In signal processing, even/odd decomposition relates to splitting a signal into its symmetric and antisymmetric components, each of which may carry different information.

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In short

Breaking $f$ into $E+O$ lets you

1. Harness symmetry to simplify integrals and equations.
2. Organize expansions (Fourier, Taylor) by parity.
3. Project cleanly onto invariant subspaces.

It’s a fundamental tool whenever symmetry—or the lack of it—can be used to your advantage.

Completeness of isohedral figure classification

The table below was simplified from the table at this Wikipedia article.

Here is a table of isohedral figures from Wikipedia. Is it proven that all isohedral figures must be one of these things – a Platonic solid, a Catalan solid, or one of these pyramid-stacking “polar” figures?

Faces	Face config.	Class	Name	Symmetry	Order
4	V33	Platonic	tetrahedron	Td, [3,3], (*332)	24
4	V33	Platonic	tetragonal disphenoid	D2d, [2+,2], (2*)	4
4	V33	Platonic	rhombic disphenoid	D2, [2,2]+, (222)	4
6	V34	Platonic	cube	Oh, [4,3], (*432)	48
6	V34	Platonic	cube	D3d, [2+,6]	12
6	V34	Platonic	cube	(2*3)	12
6	V34	Platonic	trigonal trapezohedron	D3	6
6	V34	Platonic	asymmetric trigonal trapezohedron	[2,3]+, (223)	6
8	V43	Platonic	octahedron	Oh, [4,3], (*432)	48
8	V43	Platonic	octahedron	D4h,[2,4],(*224)	16
8	V43	Platonic	octahedron	D2h,[2,2],(*222)	8
8	V43	Platonic	square bipyramid	D2d,[2+,4],(2*2)	8
8	V43	Platonic	rhombic bipyramid	D2d,[2+,4],(2*2)	8
8	V43	Platonic	square scalenohedron	D2d,[2+,4],(2*2)	8
12	V35	Platonic	regular dodecahedron	Ih, [5,3], (*532)	120
12	V35	Platonic	regular dodecahedron	Th, [3+,4], (3*2)	24
12	V35	Platonic	regular dodecahedron	T, [3,3]+, (*332)	12
12	V35	Platonic	pyritohedron	T, [3,3]+, (*332)	12
12	V35	Platonic	tetartoid	T, [3,3]+, (*332)	12
20	V53	Platonic	regular icosahedron	Ih, [5,3], (*532)	120
12	V3.62	Catalan	triakis tetrahedron	Td, [3,3], (*332)	24
12	V(3.4)2	Catalan	rhombic dodecahedron	Oh, [4,3], (*432)	48
12	V(3.4)2	Catalan	rhombic dodecahedron	Td, [3,3], (*332)	24
12	V(3.4)2	Catalan	deltoidal dodecahedron	Td, [3,3], (*332)	24
24	V3.82	Catalan	triakis octahedron	Oh, [4,3], (*432)	48
24	V4.62	Catalan	tetrakis hexahedron	Oh, [4,3], (*432)	48
24	V3.43	Catalan	deltoidal icositetrahedron	Oh, [4,3], (*432)	48
48	V4.6.8	Catalan	disdyakis dodecahedron	Oh, [4,3], (*432)	48
24	V34.4	Catalan	pentagonal icositetrahedron	O, [4,3]+, (432)	24
30	V(3.5)2	Catalan	rhombic triacontahedron	Ih, [5,3], (*532)	120
60	V3.102	Catalan	triakis icosahedron	Ih, [5,3], (*532)	120
60	V5.62	Catalan	pentakis dodecahedron	Ih, [5,3], (*532)	120
60	V3.4.5.4	Catalan	deltoidal hexecontahedron	Ih, [5,3], (*532)	120
120	V4.6.10	Catalan	disdyakis triacontahedron	Ih, [5,3], (*532)	120
60	V34.5	Catalan	pentagonal hexecontahedron	I, [5,3]+, (532)	60
2n	V33.n	Polar	trapezohedron	Dnd, [2+,2n], (2*n)	4n
2n	V33.n	Polar	trapezohedron	Dn, [2,n]+, (22n)	2n
2n	V33.n	Polar	asymmetric trapezohedron	Dn, [2,n]+, (22n)	2n
2n	V42.n	Polar	regular n-bipyramid	Dnh, [2,n], (*22n)	4n
2n	V42.2n	Polar	isotoxal 2n-bipyramid	Dnh, [2,n], (*22n)	4n
2n	V42.2n	Polar	2n-scalenohedron	Dnd, [2+,2n], (2*n)	4n
4n	V42.2n	Polar	2n-scalenohedron	Dnd, [2+,2n], (2*n)	4n

Short answer

Yes – for convex polyhedra the classification is finished. Branko Grünbaum and Geoffrey C. Shephard completed it in their study of isohedral (face-transitive) tilings of the sphere, and the result is exactly what your table shows:

• 5 Platonic solids

• 13 Catalan solids (duals of the Archimedean solids)

• Three infinite polar families

  • the (general) scalenohedra / isosceles tetrahedra
  • the $n$-bipyramids (duals of prisms)
  • the $n$-trapezohedra (duals of antiprisms)

Together these make up 30 “classes’’: 28 individual solids and 2 one-parameter families whose face-count grows with $n$. MathWorld’s Isohedron page quotes the same total and traces it to the Grünbaum–Shephard work (MathWorld), while Wikipedia summarises the duality-based reasoning – Platonic ↔ Platonic, Archimedean → Catalan, prism → bipyramid, antiprism → trapezohedron (Wikipedia).

What the proof looks like (in outline)

1. Work on the sphere. Any convex polyhedron gives a tiling of the unit sphere by projecting its faces outward.

2. Classify all face-transitive spherical tilings. Grünbaum & Shephard (1981) listed every way a single tile can repeat around the sphere under a finite symmetry group.

3. Lift the tilings back to space. Each tiling corresponds to either

   • a Platonic solid,
   • the dual of a uniform spherical tiling (hence a Catalan solid), or
   • a 2-cap tiling whose dual is a bipyramid or trapezohedron. No other convex embedding exists – that’s the heart of the proof.

Because the argument happens on the sphere, it automatically rules out any stray convex isohedra that look different but would project to one of the known patterns.

Limits of the result

• If you drop convexity (allow self-intersection or star faces) there are many more isohedra, starting with the four Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra, and no complete list is known.
• If you go up one dimension (4-polytopes) or down to tilings of the plane, the problem is again open.
• Even in 3-D, the weaker “all faces merely congruent’’ condition (monohedral) is not classified; several sporadic convex examples are known that are not isohedral (Mathematics Stack Exchange).

So, within the usual confines of convex solids the answer is yes – every isohedron is either Platonic, Catalan, or one of the polar stack-of-pyramids families on your list. Outside that safe zone, the zoo is still very much alive and un-catalogued.

Do you have the citation for the study by Branko Grünbaum and Geoffrey C. Shephard?

Below is the full bibliographic information that most authors cite when they refer to the Grünbaum–Shephard classification of isohedral (face-transitive) spherical tilings—which, in turn, yields the list of convex isohedral polyhedra you asked about.

Ref.	Standard citation (APA-style)	Notes
[GS 1981a]	Grünbaum, B., & Shephard, G. C. (1981). Spherical tilings with transitivity properties. In C. Davis, B. Grünbaum & F. A. Sherk (Eds.), The Geometric Vein: The Coxeter Festschrift (pp. 65-98). Springer-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5648-9_4	The definitive, worked-out classification of all isohedral, isotoxal and isogonal tilings of the 2-sphere. Convex isohedral polyhedra correspond to these tilings via radial projection and duality. (SpringerLink)
[GS 1981b]	Grünbaum, B., & Shephard, G. C. (1981). Patterns on the 2-sphere. Mathematika, 28(1), 1-35. https://doi.org/10.1112/S0025579300015321	A shorter companion journal article that previews some of the same results in a more compressed form. (londmathsoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)

Either reference is usually accepted; the book chapter [GS 1981a] is the most frequently quoted source when people assert that “every convex isohedron is Platonic, Catalan, or one of the three polar families.”

To The Winner Go The Potatoes

In the philosophy of Humanitism, what does it mean that "to the winner go the potatoes"?

Short answer: In Machado de Assis’s satirical “philosophy” of Humanitism (Portuguese Humanitismo), the slogan “Ao vencido, ódio ou compaixão; ao vencedor, as batatas” (“To the vanquished, hatred or pity; to the victor, the potatoes”) sums up Quincas Borba’s claim that in any struggle for scarce resources the side that prevails rightfully takes the means of survival—the potatoes—while the losers’ fate doesn’t matter because individual lives are insignificant next to the abstract totality “Humanitas.” It’s a darkly comic reduction of grand metaphysics to crude material spoils, used by Machado to parody Social-Darwinist and positivist justifications for violence, competition, and social inequality. (Wikisource, Scribd, Wikipedia)

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How the motto is introduced

Quincas Borba explains to Rubião: imagine a field with potatoes enough to nourish only one of two starving tribes; if they share, both die; if one destroys the other, the survivors gain strength to reach more food. Hence “peace is destruction; war is preservation… To the vanquished, hatred or compassion; to the victor, the potatoes.” (Wikisource, Scribd, TeX talk)

What it asserts within Humanitism

From this parable Borba infers that conflict which secures resources for the stronger side serves life and thus serves the universal substance Humanitas; individuals are mere “bubbles” in the boiling water—transient phenomena whose extinction is irrelevant to the underlying whole. The ethical upshot: material benefit to the winner trumps concern for the defeated. (Wikisource, Scribd, Wikipedia, biblioteca.pucrs.br)

Machado’s satirical target

Critics read Humanitism as Machado’s parody of nineteenth-century scientistic creeds—especially Social Darwinism and Comtean positivism—that dressed up the “law of the strongest” in lofty philosophical language. By pushing this logic to absurdity (“to the winner, the potatoes”), Machado exposes the inhuman, self-justifying moral calculus that can underwrite war, exploitation, or simple greed. (Wikipedia, TeX talk, lac.ox.ac.uk, Terra)

Later and idiomatic use

Because the scene is so memorable, “Ao vencedor, as batatas” has entered Brazilian Portuguese as an idiom roughly equivalent to “to the victor go the spoils,” invoked—often wryly—in contexts of competition, money, or power to mean that the winner walks away with the goods. (Wiktionary, Terra, VEJA, biblioteca.pucrs.br)

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In sum: Within Humanitism the phrase literalizes a brutal survival calculus (winner eats; loser disappears) and, by exaggeration, lets Machado de Assis mock any philosophy that rationalizes inequality or violence as serving some higher good. (Wikisource, Scribd, Wikipedia)

Proof ∀a,b ∈ ℝ [ a = b ⇔ ( ∀ ϵ ∈ ℝ [ ϵ > 0 ⇒ |a − b| < ϵ ] ) ]

Prove ∀a,b ∈ ℝ [ a = b ⇔ ( ∀ ϵ ∈ ℝ [ ϵ > 0 ⇒ |a − b| < ϵ ] ) ].

We are asked to prove the equivalence:

$$\mathrm{\forall }a,b\in \mathbb{R},a=b⟺(\mathrm{\forall }ϵ\in \mathbb{R},ϵ>0\Rightarrow |a-b|<ϵ)$$

We will prove this biconditional statement by proving both directions:

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(⇒) Forward direction:

Assume $a=b$. We want to show:

$$\mathrm{\forall }ϵ>0,|a-b|<ϵ$$

Since $a=b$, we have $|a-b|=|0|=0$. For any $ϵ>0$, clearly $0<ϵ$. So, $|a-b|<ϵ$.

✅ Thus, the implication holds in the forward direction.

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(⇐) Reverse direction:

Assume:

$$\mathrm{\forall }ϵ>0,|a-b|<ϵ$$

We want to show $a=b$. We’ll proceed by contradiction:

Suppose $a\ne b$. Then $|a-b|=\delta$ for some $\delta >0$. Now, choose $ϵ=\delta /2>0$. Then:

$$|a-b|=\delta >\delta /2=ϵ$$

This contradicts the assumption that $|a-b|<ϵ$ for all $ϵ>0$.

❌ So, the assumption $a\ne b$ must be false. Hence:

✅ $a=b$

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✅ Conclusion:

$$\boxed{{\displaystyle \mathrm{\forall }a,b\in \mathbb{R},a=b⟺\mathrm{\forall }ϵ>0,|a-b|<ϵ}}$$

Classics of Misogynistic Literature (o3)

classics of misogynistic literature from Hesiod to the modern day

Below is a chronological sampler of widely discussed texts that contain sustained or strikingly negative generalizations about women, enforce female subordination, eroticize domination, or otherwise figure prominently in scholarly conversations about misogyny—from Hesiod through the contemporary era. Inclusion here doesn’t mean every line of a work is hostile to women, nor that the author “hated women” in a simple biographical sense. Many are complex, ironic, parodic, or voiced through characters; some have been forcefully reinterpreted by later readers. I flag them because they’ve become touchstones in debates about literary misogyny.

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How I’m Using “Misogynistic”

Working definition: A text (or major passage) that (1) depicts women as inherently inferior, corrupting, dangerous, or burdensome as a class; (2) normalizes or eroticizes domination/violence toward women; (3) persistently trivializes women’s subjectivity; or (4) has attracted a durable critical tradition labeling it misogynistic. Context matters: sometimes a character speaks misogyny; sometimes satire undercuts it; sometimes readers disagree. I note such complications briefly.

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Antiquity (Greek & Roman)

• Hesiod – Theogony & Works and Days (c. 700 BCE). The Pandora myth inaugurates “woman” as a divine punishment who unleashes woes on men; Works and Days amplifies economic/sexual anxieties about wives as consumers of male labor.
• Semonides of Amorgos – “Types of Women” (7th c. BCE). Iambic catalogue reducing women to animal-nature stereotypes (sow, fox, dog, etc.), ending that the best woman barely exists; a paradigmatic ancient misogynist poem.
• Euripides – Hippolytus (428 BCE; misogynist speeches). The title character’s tirades that “woman” is a plague are framed dramatically but have long been excerpted as antifeminist sententiae.
• Aristophanic Tradition (esp. Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazusae, Assemblywomen, 5th–4th c. BCE). Comic gender inversions rely on stock jokes about women’s lust, secrecy, and domestic foibles; reception divided between reading as satire on men vs. recycling misogynist tropes.
• Ovid – Ars Amatoria; parts of Amores & Metamorphoses (1 BCE–8 CE). Seduction “handbook” that encourages manipulative pursuit; the epic overflows with sexual coercion by gods and heroes—central to modern discussions of rape culture in classical myth.
• Juvenal – Satire VI (early 2nd c. CE). A blistering, book-length diatribe cataloguing every imaginable female vice; the canonical Roman invective against women.
• Martial – Selected Epigrams (1st c. CE). Recurrent mockery of wives, widows, and women’s bodies; brief but influential in shaping comic misogynist topoi.

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Late Antiquity & Patristic / Early Christian Polemic

• Tertullian – De Cultu Feminarum (“On the Apparel of Women,” c. 2nd–3rd c.). Casts all women as “the devil’s gateway,” morally dangerous because of Eve’s precedent; foundational for later clerical antifeminism.
• Jerome – Adversus Jovinianum (c. 393 CE). In valorizing virginity, denigrates marriage and female sexuality; mined for antifeminist authorities in the Middle Ages.

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Medieval Europe

• Andreas Capellanus – De Amore (late 12th c.). Book III overturns earlier courtly love rules with sweeping denunciations of women; its sincerity debated but long quoted as antifeminist proof text.
• Jean de Meun (continuation of Guillaume de Lorris) – Le Roman de la Rose (c. 1275). Allegorical encyclopedia that satirizes and slanders women’s morals, sexuality, & speech; the lightning rod that provoked Christine de Pizan’s famous defense of women.
• “Antifeminist Authorities” Compilations (e.g., Lamentations of Matheolus, florilegia). Sourcebooks of clerical slurs against wives—visible inside Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue, which quotes and parodies them.
• Geoffrey Chaucer – Select Canterbury Tales Passages (late 14th c.). While Chaucer is often sympathetic, the Clerk’s Tale (extreme wifely obedience), Merchant’s Tale, and antifeminist citations in the Wife of Bath keep him central to the misogyny debate.
• Heinrich Kramer & Jacob Sprenger – Malleus Maleficarum (1486). Witch-hunting manual asserting women’s inherent carnality and susceptibility to the devil; massively influential in gendered persecution (polemical prose, yet culturally “classic”).

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Reformation & Early Modern

• John Knox – The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558). Polemic denying the legitimacy of female rulers (targeting Mary Tudor & Mary of Guise); seminal political misogyny.
• Joseph Swetnam – The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women (1615). Popular pamphlet vilifying women; sparked a lively counter-pamphlet tradition (“Swetnam controversy”).
• William Shakespeare – The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1590–94). Comic “taming” of a rebellious woman; productions range from endorsing patriarchal submission to ironic critique—hence perpetual argument about misogyny.
• Ben Jonson – Epicoene, or The Silent Woman (1609). Satire of noise, marriage, and gender performance that trades in stereotypes of the desirable “silent” wife.

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17th–18th Centuries (Restoration, Enlightenment, Augustan)

• Samuel Butler – Hudibras (1663–78, esp. anti-woman jibes). Burlesque poem including stock lampoons of female fickleness.
• Jonathan Swift – “The Lady’s Dressing Room” (1732); “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed” (1731). Scatological exposure poems deflating idealized femininity; often cited as classic literary disgust at women’s bodies.
• Alexander Pope – “Epistle II. To A Lady” (Moral Essays, 1735) & related verse. Brilliant couplets that reduce women to extremes (saint or devil, angel or ape); cornerstone of rhetorical misogyny discussions.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Émile (1762, Book V on Sophie). Prescribes an education making women pleasing, modest, subordinate to men’s moral development; philosophically influential gender hierarchy.

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19th Century & Turn of the 20th

• Arthur Schopenhauer – “On Women” (1851). Blanket claims of women’s intellectual & moral inferiority; heavily anthologized philosophical misogyny.
• Leo Tolstoy – The Kreutzer Sonata (1889). Narrator’s fevered condemnation of female sexuality & marriage; critics debate whether Tolstoy endorses or exposes pathological jealousy, but it’s long read as misogynist.
• August Strindberg – The Father (1887), Creditors (1888), Miss Julie (1888, contested). Ferocious gender battles; author’s public writings intensified charges of woman-hatred.
• Otto Weininger – Sex and Character (1903). Pseudo-scientific classification ranking “Woman” as amorphous, amoral; hugely influential in European intellectual circles.

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20th Century (Modernist to Late)

• D. H. Lawrence – e.g., Women in Love (1920), Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). Erotic mysticism entwined with hierarchical gender myths; accused alternately of misogyny and of celebrating female desire—critical battleground.
• Ernest Hemingway – recurrent portrayals (e.g., The Sun Also Rises, 1926). Critics have read his women as projections of male anxiety; debates continue.
• Henry Miller – Tropic of Cancer (1934), Tropic of Capricorn (1939). Sexually explicit narratives objectifying women; landmark in censorship fights and misogyny critiques alike.
• Norman Mailer – An American Dream (1965); essay “The Prisoner of Sex” (1971). Violent fantasy & anti-feminist polemic made Mailer emblematic of postwar macho misogyny.
• Philip Roth – Portnoy’s Complaint (1969), later Sabbath’s Theater (1995). Male narrators whose obsessive sexual monologues slide into misogynist caricature; often defended as satire of their narrators.
• John Updike – Rabbit novels (1960–2000). Chronic domestic realism that, to some readers, reduces women to foils for male spiritual angst; frequently cited in feminist critique.

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Late 20th–21st Century / Contemporary

• Bret Easton Ellis – American Psycho (1991). Graphic torture-murder of women amid consumer satire; debates over whether it indicts or reproduces misogynistic violence.
• Michel Houellebecq – Whatever (1994), The Elementary Particles (1998), Submission (2015), others. Bleak sexual-market novels voiced through alienated men whose contempt for women (and men) has drawn persistent charges of misogyny (often broadened to misanthropy).
• Neil Strauss – The Game (2005). Memoir/manual from pickup-artist culture that systematizes manipulative tactics toward women; culturally influential in contemporary misogynist subcultures (more pop-nonfiction than “literary classic,” but historically significant).
• Online “Manosphere” / Incel Forums Anthologies (2000s–present). Not canonical literature, yet vital primary sources for current misogynist rhetoric; if you’re mapping the tradition forward, these digital texts extend long-standing tropes into networked culture.

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Pair Them with Counter-Voices

Reading misogynistic texts alongside feminist or woman-authored responses sharpens critical insight. Classic pairings include:

• Hesiod ↔ Sappho fragments (alternative female lyric voice).
• Roman de la Rose ↔ Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies (1405).
• Swetnam ↔ Swetnam the Woman-Hater Arraigned by Women (1617).
• Knox ↔ Queen Elizabeth I’s speeches; Mary Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies.
• Pope/Swift ↔ Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
• Schopenhauer/Weininger ↔ Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949).
• Mailer/Roth/Ellis ↔ contemporary feminist criticism (e.g., Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics, 1970).

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Using the List

Study suggestions:

1. Contextualize: What social, theological, or political anxieties does the text displace onto “women”?
2. Voice vs. Author: Distinguish character speech, narrator stance, and authorial irony.
3. Reception History: Track when and why readers have labeled the work misogynistic; judgments change.
4. Counter-Readings: What resistant or feminist readings reappropriate the text?

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Want More?

If you’d like:

• Brief key passages to examine (with context & warnings),
• A syllabus-style reading sequence,
• Non-Western traditions (e.g., Confucian “admonitions to women,” certain legal-religious codes, or South Asian texts),
• Or a focus on literature that critiques misogyny rather than embodies it,

just let me know and I can expand or create a printable reading list.