Literature Resource Guide: Authors, Essays, Poems, and Short Stories

A comprehensive set of 140 vocabulary flashcards covering literary works, author biographies, essays, poems, and short stories from the Literature Resource Guide.

Water-snakes (Coleridge)

Oceanic creatures whose beauty and moral worth the mariner acknowledges in a moment of clarity, marking a turning point in his journey.

Five-line stanza (Coleridge)

A poetic variation from the standard quatrain used by Coleridge in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to emphasize the imperative nature of the mariner's duty to tell his story.

The Wedding-guest

The listener in Coleridge's poem whose worldview is irrevocably altered after hearing the mariner's story, rising the next morning 'a sadder and a wiser man.'

Kelvin Everest

Author who wrote that Coleridge demonstrated an 'undaunted determination always to try to understand things in terms of absolute philosophical questions of origins and ultimate destination.'

Transcendent truths (Mariner analysis)

Deep existential realities regarding love and respect for 'All things both great and small' that radically transform both the mariner and the wedding-guest.

Eric Arthur Blair

The real name of author George Orwell, born in British-occupied India in $1903$.

Indian Civil Service

The governing arm of the British colonial regime in which George Orwell's father served and which Orwell joined as a young adult.

Burma (Myanmar)

The location of George Orwell's first colonial posting, where he experienced a political awakening that compelled him to begin writing under a pseudonym.

Burmese Days (1934)

George Orwell's novel inspired by his firsthand experiences serving in the British colonial empire.

A Hanging and Shooting an Elephant

Famous essays by George Orwell detailing how his firsthand experiences as a cog in the imperial machine exposed colonial injustices.

Democratic socialism

The political system George Orwell advocated for throughout his life as a replacement for imperialism, capitalism, and communism.

Down and Out in Paris and London

George Orwell's work documenting his time living among and writing about lower-class laborers and 'tramps.'

The Road to Wigan Pier

George Orwell's publication investigating the living conditions of British industrial laborers.

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell's work documenting the injustices of both Franco's regime and communist insurgents during the Spanish Civil War.

Tribune

The influential left-wing newspaper George Orwell joined in $1943$ after resigning from the BBC.

Animal Farm (1945)

George Orwell's barnyard allegory depicting the corrupt power of authoritarianism.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

George Orwell's speculative dystopian novel depicting how authoritarian regimes exert control through force and manipulation of language and ideas.

The abolition of distance and the disappearance of frontiers

Two pre-$1914$ fashionable phrases that George Orwell notes are shallowly repeated by modern 'progressive' authors.

Soviet Asia (pre-war travel)

A region barred to almost all foreigners for many years prior to WWII, except perhaps a very few tried Communists.

Tibet (1912 status)

A region that became a closed country around $1912$ as a result of Anglo-Russian jealousy.

Sinkiang

A region theoretically part of China that George Orwell notes was practically un-get-atable before WWII.

Japanese Empire (pre-war travel)

An empire whose territories were practically barred to foreigners prior to WWII, except for Japan itself.

USSR visas (from 1935)

Travel visas issued very grudgingly by the Soviet government starting around $1935$ onwards.

Autarchy

The economic trend towards self-sufficiency that began around $1930$ and was intensified by WWII.

Atebrin

A synthetic substitute for quinine cited by Orwell to show how modern imports have become less essential.

Vitamin C tablets

A tolerable substitute for fruit cited by Orwell in his essay to illustrate economic self-sufficiency.

Napoleon's Grand Army in Moscow

Historical example cited by Orwell where soldiers marched wearing British overcoats despite an embargo.

Nationalism (Orwell's view)

A strong belief in national superiority that Orwell argues was increased, rather than erased, by modern inventions like railroads and radio.

Elizabeth Bishop's Vassar professor

An English instructor who prophetically wrote on Bishop's midterm exam that she was 'evidently doomed to be a poet.'

In the Village

Elizabeth Bishop's famous short story demonstrating how early experiences of being uprooted influenced her desire for a secure home.

North & South (1946; 1955)

Elizabeth Bishop's poetry collection featuring poems about Florida and France.

Questions of Travel (1965)

Elizabeth Bishop's titular poem collection inspired by the years ($1951$ to approximately $1966$) she spent living in Brazil.

Geography III (1976)

Elizabeth Bishop's poetry collection containing poems about Nova Scotia, London, and Massachusetts.

Thomas Travisano

Critic who described Elizabeth Bishop's poems as displaying remarkable observation filtered through a 'dry and distinctly wicked sense of humor.'

Lota de Macedo Soares

Elizabeth Bishop's lover with whom she lived in Brazil from $1951$ until approximately $1966$.

Capsized ships metaphor

Imagery in Questions of Travel comparing mountain slopes to the hulls of slime-hung and barnacled capsized ships.

Fat brown bird (Bishop)

Creature in Questions of Travel singing above a broken gasoline pump in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque.

Jesuit baroque church (Bishop)

A bamboo church structure featuring $3$ towers and $5$ silver crosses described in Questions of Travel.

Songbirds' cages (Bishop)

Objects in Questions of Travel whose weak calligraphy offers a unique medium for studying history.

Rain metaphor (Questions of Travel)

Weather described as sounding like $2\text{ hours}$ of unrelenting political speeches followed by a sudden golden silence.

Blaise Pascal reference (Bishop)

Mention of the philosopher's idea about sitting quietly in one's room, questioned in the traveller's notebook in Questions of Travel.

Arrival at Santos

Elizabeth Bishop poem containing the phrase 'immodest demands for a different world and a better life.'

Concord, Massachusetts

The hometown of Henry David Thoreau, where he spent almost his entire life writing and observing nature.

Civil Disobedience (1849)

Henry David Thoreau's landmark essay offering a critique of government authority and social conformity.

Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854)

Henry David Thoreau's famous book recounting his period living near Walden Pond.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leading Transcendentalist figure who met Thoreau in $1837$ and championed exploring 'the infinitude of the private man.'

Transcendentalism

A mid-$19\text{th}$ century intellectual collective holding that each person contains a piece of the full mystery of the universe.

Sauntering (First derivation)

Etymology derived from idle Medieval wanderers asking charity under pretense of going à la Sainte Terre (to the Holy Land).

Sauntering (Second derivation)

Etymology derived from sans terre, meaning having no particular home but being equally at home everywhere.

Peter the Hermit

Crusader figure invoked by Thoreau to describe the internal impulse driving every true walk.

Walker Errant

Thoreau's concept of a walker as a 'fourth estate' existing outside of Church, State, and People.

Ambulator nascitur, non fit

Latin phrase cited by Thoreau meaning 'A walker is born, not made.'

Four hours a day

The minimum duration Thoreau claims he requires daily sauntering through woods and fields to preserve his health and spirits.

Three-o'clock-in-the-afternoon courage

Extraordinary fortitude required to sit cheerfully indoors in the afternoon, contrasted with Bonaparte's $3\text{ AM}$ courage.

Vespertinal habits

The tendency of aging individuals to become active primarily near evening or sundown.

Wordsworth's study

Out of doors, according to his servant who showed a visitor his indoor library but stated his study was outside.

Thick cuticle (Thoreau)

A protective roughness of character and skin grown over fine qualities by living outdoors in sun and wind.

Subdiales ambulationes

Open-air walks taken under porticos by ancient philosophers who planted groves of Platanes.

Ten-mile radius circle

The geographical limit of an afternoon walk that Thoreau notes shares harmony with the threescore years and ten of human life.

King of Dahomey comparison

Reference by Thoreau asserting that a single unfamiliar farmhouse can be as impressive as a royal dominion.

Surveyor and Prince of Darkness metaphor

Thoreau's allegory of a miser using the Devil as a surveyor to find three little stones for boundary markers in paradise.

Politics (Thoreau's view)

A narrow field and highway that occupies very little actual space in the natural landscape, forgotten in half an hour.

Etymology of Village

Derived from Latin villa and via (way), from veho (to carry), denoting places where goods are carried to and from.

Vilis, vile, and villain

Etymological derivatives of villa suggesting the moral degeneracy to which stationary villagers are liable.

The Old Marlborough Road

A discontinued road near Concord described by Thoreau as a 'living way' where travelers find bare possibilities of going somewhere.

Martial Miles, Elijah Wood, Elisha Dugan

Local figures associated with the Old Marlborough Road in Thoreau's poem.

Irishman Quin

The figure whose guests are among the few who enter the Old Marlborough Road.

Gourgas, Lee, Clark, Darby

Names of selectmen listed on the blank stone guide-boards along the Old Marlborough Road.

Southwestward walking direction

The compass direction toward which Thoreau's inner magnetic needle inevitably settles when he goes out for a walk.

Parabola / Cometary orbit

The non-returning mathematical curve that Thoreau uses to describe the outline bounding his westward walks.

Lethean stream

Metaphorical term Thoreau applies to the Atlantic Ocean as an opportunity to forget the Old World and its institutions.

Styx and Lethe of the Pacific

Mythological rivers referenced by Thoreau to describe humanity's progressive westward journey across oceans.

Michaux's tree statistic

Observation that North America has over $140\text{ species}$ of large trees exceeding $30\text{ feet}$ in height, compared to only $30$ in France.

Guyot's geographer thesis

Theory that America was created for the man of the Old World to recommence his adventurous career westward.

Ex Oriente lux; ex Occidente frux

Obsolete Latin phrase quoted by Thoreau meaning 'From the East light; from the West fruit.'

Sir Francis Head

English traveler and Governor-General of Canada who noted Nature in the New World is painted on a larger, brighter scale.

Linnaeus quote on American plants

Nescio quæ facies læta, glabra plantis Americanis ('I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect of American plants').

Singapore tigers vs. North America

Comparison highlighting that tigers carry off Singapore residents within $3\text{ miles}$ of the city center, while North American woods lack dangerous beasts.

Panorama of the Rhine vs. Mississippi

Moving displays seen by Thoreau, where the Mississippi represented the heroic future and the Rhine represented Middle Age ruins.

In Wildness is the preservation of the World

Thoreau's famous statement asserting that untamed nature sustains human life and culture.

Romulus and Remus fable

Roman origin story cited by Thoreau to show that founders of eminent states draw vigor from wild sources (a wolf).

Raw koodoo marrow

Wild nourishment eagerly devoured by Hottentots, cited by Thoreau as superior to stall-fed beef for human vigor.

Musquash odor

Scent emitted by a trapper's coat, which Thoreau finds sweeter than the smells of a merchant's or scholar's garments.

Darwin's Tahitian observation

Observation that a white man bathing beside a Tahitian was like a plant bleached by a gardener compared to a dark green one in open fields.

Dwarf andromeda (Cassandra calyculata)

Dense red-bushed shrubs covering quaking sphagnum bogs that Thoreau considers richer than cultivated parterres.

Dismal Swamp preference

Thoreau's assertion that he would choose to dwell near a Dismal Swamp over the most beautiful artificial garden.

Traveler Burton

Explorer who observed that in the desert morale improves, pure air compensates for sterility, and spirituous liquors excite disgust.

Dante's infernal inscription over swamp

'Leave all hope, ye that enter,' recalled by Thoreau while surveying a straight line $132\text{ rods}$ long through a winter swamp.

40 months girdling ditch

The timeframe in which Thoreau's employer planned to redeem a mud-filled swamp using a spade.

Bushwhack, turf-cutter, spade, and bog hoe

Farming tools Thoreau calls humanity's true heirloom weapons of victory, superior to swords and lances.

Dragon-tree of the Western Isles

Metaphor for Mythology, which endures as long as mankind and thrives on the decay of other literatures.

Gramatica parda (tawny grammar)

Spanish term cited by Thoreau for wild mother-wit derived from nature rather than formal schooling.

Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

Organization Thoreau parodies by suggesting a 'Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance' or 'Beautiful Knowledge.'

Chaldean Oracles quote

'You will not perceive that, as perceiving a particular thing,' quoted by Thoreau regarding higher intuitive perception.

Vishnu Purana quote

'That is active duty which is not for our bondage; that is knowledge which is for our liberation…'

Tall white pine top climb

Adventure where Thoreau climbed a hill's pine tree in late June and discovered delicate red conelike blossoms.

The cock crowing

Barnyard sound Thoreau praises as a brag for the world, expressing the health of Nature and the gospel of the present moment.

Lawrence Buell

Scholar who noted Thoreau's Walking is an early example of environmentalist activism testing culture by its natural bounty.

Zohreh Taraghi-Moghadam

The birth name of Iranian author Goli Taraghi, born in Tehran in $1939$.

Tehran University

Institution where Goli Taraghi earned a master's degree in philosophy in $1967$ and later taught in the $1970\text{s}$.