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English-Literature
American Literature
British History
American History
Linguistics
Phonetics
Grammar
Cultural Studies
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GLOSSARY
- BARMECIDE FEAST
- An unsatisfying meal. The phrase comes from a story in the Arabian Knights
about a Persian nobleman who served an imaginary meal to a beggar.
- BLUEBEARD
- A character in a French fairy tale who married and murdered one wife after
another.
- BOADICEA
- A warrior queen of ancient Britain who led a revolt against the Romans.
- BRIDEWELL
- A prison.
- CADEAU
- The French word for gift.
- CORSAIR
- A pirate.
- CROQUANT
- French for eating or crunching on. The expression, used by Rochester,
comes from the verb croquer, meaning to crunch.
- CUYP-LIKE
- Resembling a painting by Cuyp, a Flemish painter known for peaceful rural
scenes.
- DIAN
- (spelled Diana in some editions) The goddess of the hunt. Blanche Ingram
is said to have a figure like Dian. Normally this would be a compliment, but
notice how often Blanche is compared to women who have some military or
predatory function.
- EUTYCHUS
- A man who fell asleep while listening to a sermon by St. Paul and tumbled
out of an open window.
- HEATH
- A wild shrub with pink or purple flowers; heather is one variety of heath.
- JUGGERNAUT
- An idol representing the Hindu deity Krishna. Once a year the idol was
pulled through the streets in a cart and devout worshippers supposedly
committed suicide by throwing themselves under the cart's wheels.
- MADEIRA
- An island in the Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles west of Morocco.
- MOOR
- An area of open land not good for farming.
- RASSELAS
- A philosophic romance by Samuel Johnson. A young man named Rasselas
searches the world for the secret of happiness and concludes that happiness
lies in being content with one's lot.
- RIZZIO, DAVID
- An Italian musician in the court of Mary Queen of Scots. Thought to be the
Queen's lover and involved in a plot to murder one of her husbands.
- SYBIL
- One of a group of women in ancient Greece believed to have the power to
see into the future. Usually spelled Sibyl.
- TYRIAN-DYED
- Purple in color. The name comes from the ancient Middle Eastern city of
Tyre, which was famous for the royal purple dyes produced there.
- VULCAN
- The Roman god of fire and metal-working. Vulcan was portrayed as a cripple
and this is the characteristic Rochester has in mind when he compares
himself to the god in Chapter 37.
- WOLFE, JAMES
- A British general who died while trying to capture Quebec from the French
in 1759. The death of Wolfe, mentioned in Chapter 11, was a very common
subject for patriotic paintings.
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