Modernism Vocabulary list

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Eliot Waste Land vocabulary

1. tuber—A swollen, fleshy, usually underground stem of a plant, such as the potato, bearing buds from which new plant shoots arise.

"[ . . . ] feeding a little life with dried tubers" (1. 6-7).

cupidon—image of a coy Cupid.

"[ . . . ] From which a golden cupidon peeped out [ . . . ]" (80).

2. unguent—a slave for soothing or healing.

"[ . . . ] Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes, / unguent, powered, or liquid [ . . . ]" (88).

3. neurasthenia—a condition of nervous debility (not in use).

ref. to the Neurasthenic woman in section II: A Game of Chess.

coffer—an ornamental sunken panel in a ceiling or dome (lacuna).

laqueraria—c.f. lacunar, the ceiling or undersurface of any part, especially panels sunken or hollowed.

"[ . . . ] And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air / That freshened from the window, these ascended / In fattenting the prolonged candle-flames / Flung their smoke into the laquearia, / Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling" (89-93).

4. mince words—moderate or restrain one's language to be polite or avoid giving offense. From the literal sense of cutting meat or vegetables into small pieces.

"[ . . . ] I didn't mince my words [ . . . ]" (140).

5. demotic—Of or relating to the common people; popular: demotic speech; demotic entertainments.

"[ . . . ] Asked me in demotic French / To luncheon [ . . . ]" (3.213).

garret—room or space under a sloping roof of a house.

"White bones naked on the low damp ground / And bones cast in a little low dry garret [ . . . ]" (193-194).

Smyrna—ancient city on the Aegean coast.

"Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant" (209).

dugs—udder or breasts of a female animal.

"I, Tieresias, old man with wrinkled dugs" (228).

6. carbuncle—A painful localized bacterial infection of the skin and subcutaneous tissue that usually has several openings through which pus is discharged.

"the young man carbuncular" (231).

7. propitious—Presenting favorable circumstances; auspicious.

"The time is now propitious [ . . . ]" (235).

8. leeward—On or toward the side to which the wind is blowing.

9. spar—Nautical. A wooden or metal pole, such as a boom, yard, or bowsprit, used to support sails and rigging.

"Red sails / Wide / To leeward, swing on the heavy spar" (269-271).

10. supine—lying on the back or having the face turned upward.

"'[ . . . ] By Richmond I raised my knees / Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe [ . . . ]'" (294-5).

11. carious—decayed.

"[ . . . ] Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit [ . . . ]" (339).

12. shore—To support by or as if by a prop: shored up the sagging floors; shored up the peace initiative.

"[ . . . ] These fragments I have shored agaisnst my ruins [ . . . ]" (430).

13. Fisher king—also called the Wounded King figures in Arthurian legend as the latest in a line charged with keeping the Holy Grail. Versions of his story vary widely, but he is always wounded in the legs or groin, and incapable of moving on his own. When he is injured, his kingdom suffers as he does, his impotence affecting the fertility of the land and reducing it to a barren Wasteland. Little is left for him to do but fish in the river near his castle Corbenic. Knights travel from many lands to heal the Fisher King but only the chosen can accomplish the feat. This is Percival in the earlier stories; in the later versions Percival is joined by Galahad and Bors.

fertility rites—religious rituals that reenact, either actually or symbolically, sexual acts and/or reproductive processes. As with the sacrifices of humans which many scholars think that ancient peoples made to ensure good fortune (be that as to harvests or hunting or warfare or other endeavors), fertility rites are a variety of sympathetic magic in which the forces of nature are to be influenced by the example acted out in the ritual.

14. Gethsemene—In the New Testament, a garden east of Jerusalem near the foot of the Mount of Olives. It was the scene of Jesus's agony and betrayal.

15. Gogotha—a hill near Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified.

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Stein vocabulary and notes

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)—considered the most important French artist of the 20th century and, along with Pablo Picasso, one of the most influential modernist painters of the last century. Matisse began studying drawing and painting in the 1890s. A student of the masters of Post-Impressionism, Matisse later made a reputation for himself as the leader of a group of painters known as Les Fauves. An ironic label given to them by a critic (it means "wild beasts"), the name reflected Matisse's aggressive strokes and bold use of primary colors. In 1905 Matisse gained sudden fame with three paintings, including Woman with the Hat, purchased by the wealthy American ex-patriot Gertrude Stein. Beyond painting, he worked with lithographs and sculpture, and during World War II he did a series of book designs. Later in his career he experimented with paper cutouts and designed decorations for the Dominican chapel in Vence, France. Along with Picasso, Matisse was considered one of the world's greatest living painters throughout his life. His other works include "The Dance" (1910), "Red Fish" (1911) and "The Moroccan in Green" (1913).

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso (1881-1973)—When he began studying art seriously in Barcelona and Madrid, he was already a skilled painter. In the early 1900s he visited and eventually settled in Paris, where he was part of a vibrant artistic community that included Gertrude Stein. Although greatly influenced by other artists in Europe and beyond, Picasso was inventive and prolific, and early in his career earned a worldwide reputation as an innovator. Along with Henri Matisse, he is considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. His enormous body of work spans so many years that art experts generally separate his career into distinct phases, such as the Blue Period, the Rose Period and his most famous contribution to modern art, Cubism. Picasso, unlike so many before him, was an international celebrity as well as an important contributor to the world of art.

16. bric-à-brac—Small, usually ornamental objects valued for their antiquity, rarity, originality, or sentimental associations.

"[ . . . ] Mademoiselle Weill, who sold a mixture of pictures, books and bric-à-brac [ . . . ]" (29).

17. pell mell—In a jumbled, confused manner; helter-skelter.

"[I]n one corner was a small pile of big and little canvases thrown pell mell on top of one another [ . . . ]" (30).

Nicolas Poussin—(b Les Andelys, Normandy, June 1594; d Rome, 19 Nov 1665). French painter and draughtsman, active in Italy. His supreme achievement as a painter lies in his unrivalled but hard-won capacity to subordinate dramatic narrative and the expression of extreme states of human passions to the formal harmony of designs based on the beauty and precision of abstract forms. The development of his art towards this end was focused on the search for a point of equilibrium and synthesis between the forces of the Classical and the Baroque around which most critical debate in Rome was concentrated during the 1630s. Poussin did not aspire to the classicism of Raphael’s idealized human forms or Michelangelo’s re-embodiment of the physical splendours of the antique world, nor did he attempt to vie with the bravura and energy of Annibale Carracci’s treatment of Classical mythology in the Galleria of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Equally he was not concerned with the illusionistic effects and heightened emotionalism of Baroque artists such as Pietro da Cortona and Lanfranco. He was concerned above all with interpreting his subject-matter, whether Classical or religious, and telling a story with the greatest possible concentration of emotional response, transcending any single moment in a narrative sequence but communicating and crystallizing every underlying passion into a comprehensive image.

"He had become interested in painting, had begun copying the Poussins at the Louvre [ . . . ]" (37).

18. atelier—(ăt'l-yā') A workshop or studio, especially for an artist or designer.

"He no longer painted at home but in an atelier" (38).

jugged hare—A classic English preparation that begins with cut pieces of hare that are soaked in a red wine-juniper berry marinade for at least a day. The marinated meat is well browned, then combined in a casserole (traditionally a heatproof crock or jug) with vegetables, seasonings and stock, and baked. When the meat and vegetables are done, the juices are poured off and combined with cream and the reserved hare blood and pulverized liver. The strained sauce is served over the "jugged" hare and vegetables.

Perpignan—A city of southern France near the Spanish border and the Mediterranean Sea. Probably founded in the 10th century, it was capital of the Spanish kingdom of Roussillon after the 12th century and became part of France in 1659. Population: 117,000.

"Jugged hare prepared by Madame Matisse in the fashion of Perpignan was somethign quite apart" (42).

19. Madeira—(me-dîr'e, -dĕr'e) n. A fortified dessert wine, especially from the island of Madeira.

"They also had a sort of Medeira called Roncio which was very good indeed" (42).

André Derain—(b Chatou, nr Paris, 17 June 1880; d Garches, 8 Sept 1954). French painter, sculptor, illustrator, stage designer and collector. He was a leading exponent of FAUVISM. In early 1908 he destroyed most of his work to concentrate on tightly constructed landscape paintings, which were a subtle investigation of the work of Cézanne. After World War I his work became more classical, influenced by the work of such artists as Camille Corot. In his sculpture he drew upon his knowledge and collection of non-Western art.

Isadora Duncan (1877-1927)—Isadora Duncan was a pioneer of 20th-century American dance. She is often credited with moving dance away from strict formal structures and toward more free-flowing forms of personal expression. She wore Grecian-style gowns, often performed barefoot, and startled audiences by employing such everyday human movements as skipping and running. Duncan is also remembered as an early feminist; among other things, she did not believe in marriage and bore two children out of wedlock by two different men. She was killed in a freak 1927 accident when her scarf became tangled in the rear axle of her automobile.

20. enceinte—(ĕn-sānt', än-sănt') adj. Carrying an unborn child; pregnant.

"At any rate Raymond was at thistime without any money at all and his wife was enceinte" (44).

bootblack—A person who cleans and polishes shoes for a living.

"Picasso and Fernande came to dinner, Picasso in those days was, what a dear friend and schoolmate of mine, Nellie Jacot, called, a good-looking bootblack" (46).

Potsdam—A city of northeast Germany on the Havel River near Berlin. The city was the site of the Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945), at which American, British, and Soviet leaders drew up preliminary plans for the postwar administration of Germany and assigned various captured territories to Poland. Population: 144,000.

21. impecunious—Lacking money; penniless.

"Well Valloton was a Manet for the impecunious" (50).

Félix-Emile-Jean Vallotton—(b Lausanne, 28 Dec 1865; d Paris, 28 Dec 1925). Swiss printmaker, painter and critic, active in France. He attended school in Lausanne, then moved to Paris in 1882 and enrolled as an art student at the Académie Julian. Paris remained his main base for the rest of his life, although he returned regularly to Switzerland to see his family. He became a close friend of Charles Cottet and Charles Maurin, who was his teacher and mentor. As a student, copying in the Louvre, Vallotton was drawn to the minute realism of the earlier masters, in particular Holbein, whose work he sought to emulate. He succeeded in having portraits accepted by the Salon jury in 1885 and 1886.

Etta Cone—Over a period of 50 years, Claribel and Etta Cone, two sisters who lived in adjoining apartments on Eutaw Street in Baltimore, acquired one of the most important modern art collections in the world, highlights of which are on display in the exhibition Matisse, Picasso & Friends: Impressionism to Surrealism at the Naples Museum of Art, Naples, Florida, US, February 4 through May 1, 2005.

22. indefatigable—(ĭn'dĭ-făt'ĭ-ge-bel) adj. Incapable or seemingly incapable of being fatigued; tireless.

"Someitmes later in Spain I sat under a tree and wept but she in the sun was indefatigable" (55).

Marie Laurencin—(b Paris, 31 Oct 1883; d Paris, 8 June 1956). French painter, stage designer and illustrator. After studying porcelain painting at the Sèvres factory (1901) and drawing in Paris under the French flower painter Madelaine Lemaire (1845-1928), in 1903-4 she studied at the Académie Humbert in Paris, where she met Georges Braque and Francis Picabia. In 1907 she first exhibited paintings at the Salon des Indépendants, met Picasso at Clovis Sagot’s gallery and through Picasso was introduced to the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Laurencin and Apollinaire were soon on intimate terms, their relationship lasting until 1912.

Georges Braque—(b Argenteuil-sur-Seine, Seine-et-Oise, 13 May 1882; d Paris, 31 Aug 1963). French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most important contribution to the history of art was his role in the development of what became known as cubism. In this Braque’s work is intertwined with that of his collaborator Pablo Picasso, especially from 1908 to 1912. For a long time it was impossible to distinguish their respective contributions to Cubism, for example in the development of collage, while Picasso’s fame and notoriety overshadowed the quiet life of Braque.

23. Cubism—a 20th century art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music and literature. It developed as a short but highly significant art movement between about 1907 and 1914 in France. In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles presenting no coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the ambiguous shallow space characteristic of cubism. Cubism began as an intellectual revolt against the artistic expression of previous eras. Among the specific elements abandoned by the cubists were the sensual appeal of paint texture and color, subject matter with emotional charge or mood, the play of light on form, movement, atmosphere, and the illusionism that proceeded from scientifically based perspective. To replace these they employed an analytic system in which the three-dimensional subject (usually still life) was fragmented and redefined within a shallow plane or within several interlocking and often transparent planes.

Guillaume Apollinaire—the pseudonym of Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitsky, the illegitimate son of an Italian army officer and a young Polish noblewoman. He was born in Rome on Aug. 26, 1880, and brought up in various towns in southern France where his mother happened to be sojourning. In 1899 Apollinaire went to Paris to live and, without money or diplomas, had difficulty. However, between odd jobs as a literary hack, tutor, bank clerk, and journalist, he managed to travel on the Continent and make two trips to London. Also he had a few love affairs that later figured in his poetry.

German armistice—The armistice treaty between the Allies and Germany was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on November 11, 1918, and marked the end of the First World War on the Western Front. Principal signatories were Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Allied Commander-in-chief, and Matthias Erzberger, Germany's representative.The Armistice was agreed at 5 AM on November 11, to come into effect at 11 AM, Paris, France time (for which reason the occasion is sometimes referred to as "the eleventh of the eleventh of the eleventh"). It was the result of a hurried and desperate process. Two minutes before the armistice came into effect a final Canadian soldier was killed by a German sniper. Acting German commander Paul von Hindenburg had requested arrangements for a meeting from Ferdinand Foch via telegram on November 7. He was under pressure of imminent revolution in Berlin, Munich and elsewhere across Germany. The German delegation crossed the front line in five cars and was escorted for ten hours across the devastated war zone of Northern France (perhaps, they speculated, to focus their minds on the lack of sympathy they could expect. They were then entrained and taken to the secret destination, Foch's railway siding in the forest of Compiègne. Foch appeared only twice in the three days of negotiations: on the first day, to ask them what they wanted, and on the last day, to see to the signatures. In between, the German delegation discussed the detail of Allied terms with French and Allied officers. The Armistice amounted to complete German demilitarization, with few promises made by the Allies in return. The naval blockade of Germany would continue until complete peace terms could be agreed upon. There was no question of negotiation. The Germans were able to correct a few impossible demands (for example, the decommissioning of more submarines than their fleet possessed), and registered their formal protest at the harshness of Allied terms. But they were in no position to refuse to sign. On Sunday November 10, they were shown newspapers from Paris, to inform them that Kaiser Wilhelm II had abdicated. Telegrams were passed to and from the German team to both the German Army Chief of Staff Paul von Hindenburg in Spa and the hastily assembled civilian government of Friedrich Ebert in Berlin. Erzberger apparently attempted to take negotiations to the limit of the 72 hours Foch had offered Hindenburg, but an open telegram from Berlin imploring him to sign immediately somewhat undermined his team's credibility. Ebert was desperate, facing imminent insurrection in many large German cities. Signatures were made between 5:12 AM and 5:20 AM, Paris, France time.

24. lorgnette—A pair of eyeglasses or opera glasses with a short handle.

"She used a lorgnette" (60).

Clouet—Family of draughtsmen and painters of Netherlandish origin, active in France. (1) Jean Clouet and his son (2) François Clouet were the most important members of a family of artists from the southern Netherlands, possibly originating in Valenciennes. They were the leading masters of portrait drawing and painting in Renaissance France. Between them their activity for the French court and nobility extended from the reign of Louis XII to that of Charles IX, and they had numerous pupils, associates and imitators working in a style closely resembling their own. Until around 1850, when Laborde began his researches into art in 16th-century France, the personalities and oeuvres of Jean and François and their followers had become merged into one painter known by the nickname of ‘Janet’, who was deemed to be synonymous with François Clouet. Archives also mention the names of Michiel and Polet Clouet, the latter perhaps a brother of Jean, though the precise relationships are disputed. There are few documented extant painted works by either of the known Clouets, although a number of paintings is generally agreed to be by them, and more or less convincing attempts have been made by recent scholars, in particular Mellen, to expand the corpus.

"Finally she remarked, as for myself, I prefer portraits and that is of course quite natural, as I myself am a Clouet" (61).

Boche—offensive. German

"When you met her she would say, let me present to you my husband a boche, I do not remember his name" (62).

25. curio—a curious or unusual object of art or piece of bric-à-brac.

"At the time negro sculpture had been well known to curio hunters but not to artists" (63).

Peripignan—A city of southern France near the Spanish border and the Mediterranean Sea. Probably founded in the 10th century, it was capital of the Spanish kingdom of Roussillon after the 12th century and became part of France in 1659.

"Perhaps it was Maillol who came from the Perignan region and knew Matisse in teh south and called his attention to it" (63).

Aristide-Joseph-Bonaventure Maillol—(b Banyuls-sur-Mer, 8 Oct 1861; d Perpignan, 24 Sept 1944) French sculptor, painter, designer and illustrator. He began his career as a painter and tapestry designer, but after c. 1900 devoted himself to three-dimensional work, becoming one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century. He concentrated almost exclusively on the nude female figure in the round, consciously wishing to strip form of all literary associations and architectural context. Although inspired by the Classical tradition of Greek and Roman sculpture, his figures have all the elemental sensuousness and dignity associated with the Mediterranean peasant.

epistemology—The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity; The study of how we know what we know.

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Fitzgerald vocabulary and notes

Maecenas—(c. 70—8 BC) Roman diplomat and literary patron. He claimed descent from Etruscan kings. Though highly influential in the state, he held no title, nor did he wish to be a senator. From 43 on he helped Octavian (later Augustus) diplomatically and domestically, administering Rome and Italy while Octavian was fighting Pompeius in 36 and Mark Antony in 31. He is best remembered as the generous patron of such writers as Virgil, Horace, and Propertius; he used the work of such literati to glorify Augustus's regime. In 23, after the discovery of his brother-in-law's conspiracy against Augustus, he was forced to retire.

"I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold hte shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Mæcenas knew" (4).

fractious—Inclined to make trouble; unruly.

"His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed" (7).

supercilious—Feeling or showing haughty disdain.

"Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner" (7).

Rise of the Colored Empire, by Goddard—actually a reference to The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy, by Lothrop Stoddard, A.M., Ph.D. (Harvard, 1922) A book discussing Stoddard's concern over the growth of the Asian population, Bolshevik propaganda, "Pan-Islamism," and the decreasing fertility among western Europeans.

"'Civilization's going to pieces,' broke out Tom violently. 'I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Colored Empires' by this man Goddard?'"

rotogravure—An intaglio printing process in which letters and pictures are transferred from an etched copper cylinder to a web of paper, plastic, or similar material in a rotary press; Printed material, such as a newspaper section, produced by this process.

"I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach" (18).

peremptory—Putting an end to all debate or action: a peremptory decree.

"Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart" (20).

wag—A humorous or droll person; a wit.

ocultist—a person dealing with supernatural influences, agencies, or phenomena.

"Evidently some wild wag of an ocultist set them there to fatten his proactice in teh borough of queens, and tehn sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away" (24).

crêpe-de-chine—(krāp' de shēn') A silk crepe used for dresses and blouses.

"Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crêpe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of bueaty, but there was an immediately preceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering" (25).

muslin—Any of various sturdy cotton fabrics of plain weave, used especially for sheets.

"She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York" (27).

ectoplasm—The visible substance believed to emanate from the body of a spiritualistic medium during communication with the dead; An immaterial or ethereal substance, especially the transparent corporeal presence of a spirit or ghost.

"He informed me that he was in the 'artistic game,' and I gathered later that he was a photographer and had made the dim enlargement of Mrs. Wilson's mohter which hovered like an ectoplasm on the wall" (30).

affected—Assumed or simulated to impress others: an affected accent; speaking or behaving in an artificial way to make an impression.

"Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air" (31).

Kaiser Wilhelm—(1859–1941), grandson of Wilhelm I, was the last German kaiser, 1888–1918. He dismissed Bismarck as chancellor and took a dominant role in making Germany a world power, enlarging its army, navy, and empire. His belligerent policy provoked brushes with U.S. naval forces at Samoa (1889) and Manila (1898), and he authorized naval contingency plans for blockades of the U.S. coast and assaults in the Caribbean. Wilhelm had little accurate knowledge of the United States when he authorized the German Navy during World War I to begin unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917. By so doing, this insecure and garrulous narcissist brought America into the war against Germany, tipping the perilous balance against his country. Although considered one of the dominant players on the world stage in 1913, from 14 August 1914—when he told the German High Command that it was their job to run the war, not his—until approximately 1967, Wilhelm II's importance in world affairs was downplayed. Recent historiography, however, has reestablished him as a key player in his era. He died in exile in the Netherlands.

"'Well, they say he's a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wihelm's" (32).

gypped—(a slang pejorative term referencing Gypsies) To deprive (another) of something by fraud; cheat or swindle.

"We had our twelve hundred dollars when we started, but we got gypped out of it all in two days in the private rooms" (34).

kike—n. Offensive Slang. Used as a disparaging term for a Jew.

"'I almost married a little kike who'd been after me for years" (34).

fortnight—A period of 14 days; two weeks.

"At least once a fortnight a crop of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden" (40).

cordial—A liqueur.

"In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young ot know one from another" (40).

prodigality—Profuse generosity.

"Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word" (40).

staid—Characterized by sedate dignity and often a strait-laced sense of propriety; sober.

spectroscope—optical instrument for producing spectral lines and measuring their wavelengths and intensities, used in spectral analysis. When a material is heated to incandescence it emits light that is characteristic of the atomic makeup of the material. In the original spectroscope design in the early 19th cent., light entered a slit and a collimating lens transformed the light into a thin beam of parallel rays. A prism then separated the beam into its spectrum. The observer then viewed the spectrum through a tube with a scale that was transposed up the spectrum image, enabling its direct measurement.

"Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside—East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gayety.

Belasco—David Belasco (1853-1931), American theatrical director-producer and playwright, attempted to bring veracity to the popular melodrama through meticulous detail in setting and lighting. He led in the movement that made the director the theater's dominant personality.

"This fella's a regular Belasco" (45).

vacuous—Devoid of matter; empty; Lacking intelligence; stupid.

"A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian, and a notorious contralto had sung in jazz, and between the numbers people were doing 'stunts' all over the garden, while happy, vacuous bursts of laughter rose towrdthe summer sky" (46).

hydroplane—A motorboat designed so that the prow and much of the hull lift out of the water and skim the surface at high speeds.

"Evidently he lived in this vicinity, for he told me that he had just bought a hydroplane, and was going to try it out in the morning" (47).

roughneck—An uncouth person.

"[Gatsby's smile] understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had prceisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished—and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd" (48).

echolalia—Psychiatry. The immediate and involuntary repetition of words or phrases just spoken by others, often a symptom of autism or some types of schizophrenia; An infant's repetition of the sounds made by others, a normal occurrence in childhood development.

"There was a boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden" (49).

vinous—Of, relating to, or made with wine; Affected or caused by the consumption of wine.

"A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes on her face, whereupon she threw up her hands, sank into a chair, and went off into a deep vinous sleep" (51).

probity—Complete and confirmed integrity; uprightness: “He was a gentlemanly Georgian, a person of early American probity” (Mary McGrory).

"In the early morning the sun threw my shadow westward as I hurried down the white chasms of lower New York to the Probity Trust" (56).

racy—Risqué; ribald; suggestive of sexual impropriety

"I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye" (56).

affectation—A show, pretense, or display; Behavior that is assumed rather than natural; artificiality; A particular habit, as of speech or dress, adopted to give a false impression.

"The bored haughty face that she turned to the world concealed something—most affectations conceal something eventually, even though they don't in the beginning—and one day I found what it was" (57).

row—A boisterous disturbance or quarrel; a brawl.

"At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers—a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round" (57).

cardinal virtues—One of the four paramount virtues in classical philosophy: justice, prudence, fortitude, or temperance.

"Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this was mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known" (59).

Paul Von Hindenburg—(1847–1934), German field marshal and president. Member of an aristocratic Prussian family, Hindenburg saw action as a junior officer in 1866 and 1870–71 and retired in 1922 as a corps commander. After the victory at Tannenberg in August 1914, Hindenburg became a national symbol. The mystique of the “wooden titan” increased during 1915 and 1916, less for his own achievements than through the continued discrediting of rival symbols: Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, and not least Kaiser Wilhelm himself. Appointed chief of the General Staff in August 1916, Hindenburg was over his head as the supreme commander of a total war effort in a state already stumbling from exhaustion. He lent his name and prestige to a series of fumbling, even disastrous, policies. He supported the increasingly unrealistic war aims of the militarists and nationalists. Yet, at the end, he did facilitate acceptance of the kaiser's abdication, the establishment of the Weimar Republic, and the armistice, and he remained a hero. Elected president of the Weimar Republic in 1925 by a coalition of conservatives and nationalists, Hindenburg initially performed his limited duties loyally and with the same success. The Great Depression, the rise of National Socialism, and his own advancing age, however, reduced his effectiveness. Reelected in 1932 and fearing civil war, the nearly senile president appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor in January 1933, and thereafter remained a figurehead until his death in 1934.

"'One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil" (61).

timetable—A schedule listing the times at which certain events, such as arrivals and departures at a transportation station, are expected to take place.

"Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a timetable the names of those who came to Gatsby's house that summer" (61).

punctilious—Strictly attentive to minute details of form in action or conduct.

"This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness" (64).

Bois de Boulogne—(bwä' de bū-lōn', -lôn'ye) A park in Paris, France, bordering on the suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. A popular recreation area since the 17th century, it is the site of Auteuil and Longchamps racecourses.

"The very phrases were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except that of a turbaned 'character' leaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne" (66).

Montenegro—A country of southeast Europe bordering on the Adriatic Sea. An ancient Balkan state, it did not come under Turkish control until the end of the 15th century, and from 1910 to 1918 it was an independent kingdom. Montenegro then joined the newly formed Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (1918–1929), which became Yugoslavia after 1929. In 1991 when four of the six Yugoslav republics declared independence, Montenegro remained with Serbia as a constituent republic of a reorganized Yugoslavia (1992–2003; known as Serbia & Montenegro 2003–2006). Podgorica is the capital. Population: 616,000.

"I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration—even Montegegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!" (66).

Astoria—Commercial, industrial, and residential section of NW Queens borough of New York City, SE N.Y.; settled in the 17th century as Hallet's Cove. It was renamed for John Jacob Astor in 1839. It is an industrial and residential section and has the largest population of Greek-Americans in the United States. Several 18th-century houses remain.

"With fenders spread like wings we scattered light through half Astoria—only half, for as we twisted among the pillars of the elevated I heard the familiar 'jug-jug-splat!' of a motorcycle, and a frantic policeman rode alongside" (68).

somnambulance—sleepwalking.

"Gatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant, whereupon Mr. Wolfsheim swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed inot a somnambulatory abstraction" (69).

Sauterne—A white wine made in the district of Sauterne, France.

"She had a bottle of Sauterne in one hand and a letter in the other" (76).

victoria—A touring car with a folding top usually covering only the rear seat.

"When Jordan Baker had finished telling all this we had left the Plaza for half an hour and were driving in a victoria thorugh Central Park" (78).

harrow—To inflict great distress or torment on.

"We both jumped up, and, a little harrowed myself, I went out into the yard" (85).

Kant at the church steeple—Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher given to gazing at a church steeple while thinking.

postern—A small rear gate, especially one in a fort or castle.

"Instead of taking the short cut along the Sound we went down to the road and entered by the big postern" (90).

Adam study—probably refers to interior design by, or inspired by, Scottish architect Robert Adam (1728-1792).

Chartreuse—A trademark used for a usually yellow or green liqueur.

"Finally we came to Gatsby's own apartment, a bedroom and a bath, and an Adam study, where we sat down and drank a glass of some Chartreuse he took from the cupboard in the wall" (91).

pompadour—A man's hairstyle with the hair brushed up from the forehead.

"The pompadour! You never told me you had a pompadour—or a yacht" (93).

insidious—Working or spreading harmfully in a subtle or stealthy manner: insidious rumors; an insidious disease; Intended to entrap; treacherous: insidious misinformation; Beguiling but harmful; alluring: insidious pleasures.

"He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career—when he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior" (98).

shiftless—Lacking ambition or purpose; lazy: a shiftless student.

"His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people—his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all" (98).

he must be about His Father's business (Luke 2:49) "And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" Jesus had been taken to Jerusalem for the first time since He had been an infant. After the festival was over, the group of travelers was on its way back to Nazareth when His parents noticed Jesus was not in the group. So they went back, frantically looking for Him. They searched for two or three days before finally going to the temple where they found Jesus conversing with the teachers.

meretricious—Attracting attention in a vulgar manner: meretricious ornamentation.

"He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father's buisness, in the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty" (98).

bracing—Invigorating or refreshing; strengthening: a bracing tonic.

"His brown, hardening body lived naturally through the half-fierce, half-lazy work of the bracing days" (98).

conceit—A fanciful thought or idea.

"The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night" (99).

ineffable—Incapable of being expressed; indescribable or unutterable.

"A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor" (99).

fancy—An image or a fantastic invention created by the mind.

"Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace" (99).

Madame de Maintenon—Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon (1635-1719) was the morganatic second wife of Louis XIV of France. She rose from poverty to become the second wife of French King Louis XIV.

turgid—Excessively ornate or complex in style or language; grandiloquent: turgid prose.

"The none too savory ramifications by which Ella Key, the newspaper woman, played Madame de Maintenon to his weakness and sent him to sea in a yacht, were common knowledge to the turgid sub-journlaism of 1902" (99).

debauchee—A person who habitually indulges in debauchery or dissipation; a libertine.

"I remember the portrait of him up in Gatsby's bedroom, a gray, florid man with a hard, empty face—the pioneer debauchee, who during one phase of American life brought back to the Eastern seaboard the savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon" (100).

dilatory—Intended to delay.

"The dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive" (108).

Trimalchio—a character in the Roman narrative The Satyricon by Petronius. He plays a part only in the section entitled Cena Trimalchionis (The Banquet of Trimalchio). Trimalchio is a freedman who through hard work and perseverance has attained power and wealth. His full name is Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio Maecenatianus; the references to Pompey and Maecenas in his name serve to enhance his ostentatious character. The name Trimalchio is Semitic and means "thrice-blessed." His wife's name is Fortunata, a former prostitute. Trimalchio is known for throwing lavish dinner parties, where his numerous servants bring course after course of exotic delicacies, such as live birds sewn up inside a pig and a dish to represent every sign of the zodiac. The Satyricon has a lengthy description of Trimalchio's proposed tomb, which is incredibly ostentatious and lavish. This tomb was to be designed by a well-known tomb-builder called Habinnas, who was among the revelers present at Trimalchio's feast. He sought to impress his guests—the Roman nouveau riche, mostly freedmen—with the ubiquitous excesses seen throughout his dwelling. By the end of the banquet, Trimalchio's drunken showiness leads to the entire household acting out his funeral, all for his own amusement and egotism. The original title of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was Trimalchio in West Egg. One of Fitzgerald's complete earlier drafts of the book was published under the name Trimalchio: An Early Version of The Great Gatsby.

"It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed ot go on one Saturday night—and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over.

caravansary—An inn built around a large court for accommodating caravans along trade routes in central and western Asia; A large inn or hostelry.

"So the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes" (114).

libertine—(lĭb'er-tēn')One who acts without moral restraint; a dissolute person.

prig—A person who demonstrates an exaggerated conformity or propriety, especially in an irritatingly arrogant or smug manner.

"The transition from libertine to prig was so complete" (130).

portentous—Of the nature of or constituting a portent; foreboding: “The present aspect of society is portentous of great change” (Edward Bellamy).

"I was thirty. Before me stretched the portenous, menacing road of a new decade" (135).

truculent—Disposed to fight; pugnacious.

"Only the negro and I were near enough to hear what he said, but the policeman caught something in the tone and looked over with truculent eyes" (140).

redolent—Having or emitting fragrance; aromatic; Suggestive; reminiscent: a campaign redolent of machine politics.

"There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors, and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender, but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year's shining motor-cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered" (148-9).

sharper—One who deals dishonestly with others, especially a cheating gambler.

"He told her those things in a way that frightened her—that made it look as if I was some kind of cheap sharper" (152).

fortuitous—Happening by accident or chance.

"A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about . . . like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through teh amorphous trees" (161).

adventitious—Not inherent but added extrinsically.

"Some one with a positive manner, perhaps a detective, used the expression 'madman' as he bent over Wilson's body that afternoon, and the adventitious authority of his voice set the key for the newspaper reports next morning" (163).

pasquinade—A satire or lampoon, especially one that ridicules a specific person, traditionally written and posted in a public place.

"When Michaelis's testimony at the inquest brought to light Wilson's suspicions of his wife I thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinade—but Catherine, who might have said anything, didn't say a word" (163).

ulster—A loose, long overcoat made of heavy, rugged fabric and often belted.

"It was Gatsby's father, a solemn old man, very helpless and dismayed, bundled up in a long cheap ulster against the warm September day" (167).

James J. Hill—(1838-1916), American railroad builder, was the major force in the construction and management of the Great Northern Railway and is often referred to as the "Empire Builder of the Northwest."

"If he'd of lived, he'd of been a great man. A man like James J. Hill" (168).

American Legion—The American Legion was founded in 1919 by World War I veterans seeking to preserve comradeship fostered in service, to obtain medical care and compensation for the disabled, and to combat postwar radicalism during the Red Scare. It immediately became the largest veterans' organization in U.S. history: membership varied between 600,000 and 1.1 million from 1919 to 1941, and has remained over 2.5 million since 1945. Unlike the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Legion admits all veterans of periods of conflict, regardless of whether they served in a theater of combat. More than 10,000 local posts elect delegates to state and national conventions. The Legion lobbied to create the precursor of the Veterans Administration in 1921 to pay adjusted compensation of the veteran “bonus” ahead of schedule in 1936, and later to provide a G.I. Bill of benefits for World War II veterans.

"I saw right away he was a fine-appearing, gentlemanly young man, and when he told me he was an Oggsford I knew I could use him good. I got him to join up in the America Legion and he used to stand high there" (171).

El Greco—(1541-1614) Considered a representative of late Renaissance Spanish art, El Greco was actually born in Greece, on the island of Crete. After studying in Venice under Titian, El Greco settled in Toledo, Spain in 1577. At the time he was wildly popular, his emotionally religious paintings being just the ticket for the hometown of the Spanish Inquisition. After his death his work was largely ignored until the beginning of the 20th century; now he considered one of the inspired geniuses of Western art. His distinctive style features bold shapes and colors, with elongated and slightly distorted figures. In Toledo El Greco was in constant demand and liked living large: he maintained a private orchestra to accompany his meals.

"I see it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lustreless moon" (176).

provincial—Of or characteristic of people from the provinces; not fashionable or sophisticated.

squeamish—Easily shocked or disgusted; Excessively fastidious or scrupulous.

"Then he went intothe jewelry store to buy a pear necklace—or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons—rid of my provincial squeamishness forever" (179).

pander—To act as a go-between or liaison in sexual intrigues; function as a procurer; To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses: “He refused to pander to nostalgia and escapism” (New York Times).

"Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams [ . . . ]" (180).

commensurate—Of the same size, extent, or duration as another.

"[ . . . ] for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder" (180).