Don Juan - Job (AP Lit)

Don Juan

a libertine, profligate, a man obsessed with seducing women ; after Don Juan, the legendary 14th century Spanish nobleman and libertine

Don Quixote

someone overly idealistic to the point of having impossible dreams; from the crazed and impoverished Spanish noble who sets out to revive the glory of knighthood, romanticized in the musical The Man of La Mancha based on the story by Cervantes

Panglossian

blindly or misleadingly optimistic; after Dr. Pangloss in Candide by Voltaire, a pedantic old tutor

Falstaffian

full of wit and bawdy humor; after Falstaff, a fat, sensual, boastful, and mendacious knight who was the companion of Henry, Prince of Wales

Frankenstein

Anything that threatens or destroys its creator; from the young scientist in Mary Shelley's novel of this name, who creates a monster that eventually destroys him

Friday

A faithful and willing attendant, ready to turn his hand to anything; from the young savage found by Robinson Crusoe on a Friday, and kept as his servant and companion on the desert island

Galahad

A pure and noble man with limited ambition;

in the legends of King Arthur, the purest and most

virtuous knight of the Round Table, the only knight to

find the Holy Grail

Jekyll and Hyde

A capricious person with two sides to his/her personality; from a character in the famous novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde who had more than one personality, a split personality (one good and one evil)

Lilliputian

descriptive of a very small person or of something diminutive, trivial or petty; after the Lilliputians, tiny people in Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Little Lord Fauntleroy

refers either to a certain type of children's clothing or to a beautiful, but pampered and effeminate small boy; from a work by Frances H. Burnett, the main character, seven-year-old Cedric Errol, was a striking figure, dressed in black velvet with a lace collar and yellow curls

Lothario

used to describe a man whose chief interest is seducing a woman; from the play The Fair Penitent by Nicholas Rowe, the main character and the seducer

Malapropism

The usually unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase, especially the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended, but ludicrously wrong in context - Example: polo bears. Mrs. Malaprop was a character noted for her misuse of words in R. B. Sheridan's comedy The Rivals

Milquetoast

a timid, weak, or unassertive person; from Casper Milquetoast, who was a comic strip character created by H.T. Webster

Pickwickian

humorous, sometimes derogatory; from Samuel Pickwick, a character in Charles Dickens’ Pickwickian Papers (Right: Frederick Barnard’s Pickwick).

Pollyanna

characterized a person by impermissible optimism and a tendency to find good in everything, a foolishly or blindly optimistic person; from Eleanor Porter's heroine, Pollyanna Whittier, in the book Pollyanna

Pooh-bah

a pompous, ostentatious official, especially one who, holding many offices, fulfills none of them, a person who holds high office ; after Pooh-Bah Lord- High-Everything-Else, character in The Mikado, a musical by Gilbert and Sullivan

Quixotic

having foolish and impractical ideas of honor, or schemes for the general good; after Don Quixote, a half-crazy reformer and knight of the supposed distressed, in a novel by the same name

Robot

a machine that looks like a human being and performs various acts of a human being, a similar but functional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized by an efficient, insensitive person who functions automatically, a mechanism guided by controls from Karel Capek's Rossum's Universal Robots (1920), taken from the Czech "robota," meaning drudgery

Rodomontade

bluster and boasting, to boast (rodomontading or rodomontaded); from Rodomont, a brave, but braggart knight in Bojardo's Orlando Inamorato; King of Sarza or Algiers, son of Ulteus, and commander of both horse and foot in the Saracen Army

Scrooge

a bitter and/or greedy person; from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, an elderly stingy miser who is given a reality check by 3 visiting ghosts

Simon Legree

a harsh, cruel, or demanding person in authority, such as an employer or officer that acts in this manner ; from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Ward, the brutal slave overseer

Svengali

a person with an irresistible hypnotic power; from a person in a novel written in 1894 by George Mauriers; a musician who hypnotizes and gains control over the heroine

Tartuffe

hypocrite or someone who is hypocritical; central character in a comedy by Moliere produced in 1667; Moliere was famous for his hypocritical piety

Uncle Tom

someone thought to have the timid service attitude like that of a slave to his owner; from the humble, pious, long-suffering Negro slave in Uncle Tom's Cabin by abolitionist writer Stowe

Uriah Heep

a fawning toadie, an obsequious person; from a character in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (1849-50);

Walter Mitty

a commonplace non-adventuresome person who seeks escape from reality through Daydreaming, a henpecked husband or dreamer; after a daydreaming henpecked “hero” in a story by James Thurber

Yahoo

a boorish, crass, or stupid person; from a member of a race of brutes in Swift's Gulliver's Travels who have the form and all the vices of humans

Absolom

a son who brings heartache to his father; from the third son of David, King of Israel. Exiled for three years before he was allowed to return to the court or see his royal father, Absolom plotted to cause a rebellion against his father to overtake the kingdom because he heard Solomon was to succeed David. When Absolom was killed in battle, King David grieved for his son in spite of his treachery against him

Alpha and Omega

The beginning and the end, from a quote in Revelations in the New Testament

Cain

a brother who kills a brother; from the story of Adam and Eve’s son Cain, who killed his brother Abel out of jealousy

Daniel

one known for wisdom and accurate judgment; from a wise leader in the Old Testament who was able to read the handwriting on the wall

David and Bathsheba

represents a big sin; from King David’s affair with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. After they had an affair and she became pregnant, David had her husband Uriah put on the front lines of battle so he would die. The "Bathsheba Affair" formed a critical turning point in King David's life. Prior to this, he had prospered greatly, but afterward, his personal fortunes were greatly diminished. Nathan the prophet confronted David after he took Bathsheba for his wife and trapped him into admitting his own guilt.

Eye of the Needle

A very difficult task; from famous narrow gateway called “the needle.” In the NT, Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.

Filthy Lucre

Money or profits; from a story in the NT of Jesus casting moneylenders out of the Temple

Goliath

a large person; from the giant from the Philistine city of Gath, slain by David, when he was a shepherd boy

Good Samaritan

someone who helps another person, perhaps someone of a different race or background; from a NT parable about a Samaritan, a traditional enemy of the Hebrews, who stopped to help a Jewish man who had been beaten and left for dead at the side of the road.

Handwriting on the wall

what the future holds; from the OT story of Daniel, who was able to accurately predict some mysterious writing that appeared on a wall (translated, it predicted the imminent death of the king)

Ishmael

one who is cast out as being unworthy; the son of Abraham and his handmaiden Hagar, he was cast out into the desert when his wife Sarah had their son Isaac; therefore said to be the ancestor of the nomadic desert tribes of Arabs

Jacob

grandson of Abraham, son of Isaac and Rebekah, brother of Esau, and the traditional ancestor of Israelites. His name was changed to Israel, and his 12 sons became the 12 Tribes of Israel.

Job

who suffers a great deal but remains faithful; from an OT character whose faith in God was tested by Satan; though he lost his family and belongings, he remained patient and faithful