The French Embassy live-streamed Anka Muhlstein and Dr. Valerie Steele, Nov. 22, 2016. Here is the recording.
11.23.2016
11.22.2016
The Captive V pp 231-60
p 233 | ... Rue de Berri and Rue Washington are in the same neighborhood, the 8th arrondissement of Paris,
p 233 | Lemuel Gulliver is the fictional protagonist and narrator of Gulliver's Travels, a novel written by Jonathan Swift, first published in 1726.
p 235 | Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past.
p 237 | ... old French silver... This is only from 1882.
p 240 | Anaxagoras (c. 500—428 B.C.E.): Anaxagoras of Clazomenae was an important Presocratic natural philosopher and scientist who lived and taught in Athens for approximately 30 years.
p 240 | .... the Apostles at Pentecost...The Christian feast day of Pentecost is 7 weeks after Easter Sunday. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles.
p 243 | amyl = amyl nitrite, a vasodilator, may have been used to treat / prevent chest pain (angina).
p 249 | Claude-Philibert Barthelot, comte de Rambuteau (1781–1869), Préfet of the former Départment of the Seine, caused pissoirs to be installed on Paris streets. See also pissotière.
p 255 | Neurasthenia.... more than just neurotic?
p 257 | Le Pêcheur d'Islande (An Iceland Fisherman, 1886 novel by Pierre Loti); Tartarin de Tarascon (Tartarin of Tarascon, 1872 novel by Alphonse Daudet)
p 26o | Eyeglasses in 19th century France
11.15.2016
The Captive V pp 210-30
p 217 | Gabriel Davioud, (French architect, 1823–81), Trocadero, Jardin des Champs-Élysées.
p 218 | Charterhouse of Pavia = Carthusian monastery of Pavia (Italy)
p 218 | Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431-1506), Italian painter.
p 218 | Passy is an area of Paris, in the 16th arrondissement, on the Right Bank, traditionally home to many of the city's wealthiest residents.
p 219 | The Bois de Boulogne is a large public park on the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. It was created between 1852 and 1858 during the reign of the Emperor Louis Napoleon.
p 229-30 | Ferdinand Barbedienne (French artist, 1810-92). Bronze worker, reproduced ancient and modern sculptures in bronze.
 |
| Pavia |
p 218 | Charterhouse of Pavia = Carthusian monastery of Pavia (Italy)
p 218 | Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431-1506), Italian painter.
p 218 | Passy is an area of Paris, in the 16th arrondissement, on the Right Bank, traditionally home to many of the city's wealthiest residents.
 |
| Passy & the Seine |
 |
| Bois de Boulogne |
p 229-30 | Ferdinand Barbedienne (French artist, 1810-92). Bronze worker, reproduced ancient and modern sculptures in bronze.
10.30.2016
The Captive V pp 169-210
p 176 | Gregory the Great . . . Palestrina: Gregory the Great, Pope from 590 to 604, is supposed to have set the rules for Gregorian chant. A 16th-century Pope, Gregory XIII, had Palestrina adapt the old chants to the new liturgy of Pius V. (Clark)
p 180 | Charles de Sévigné, son of Madame de Sévigné.
p 185 | Les Fourberies de Nérine, a comedy in verse by by Théodore de Banville
p 195 | Danaides . . . Ixion: From Greek legend, they were condemned to never-ending tasks. The Danaides (the 50 daughters of Danaus) murdered their husbands and were condemned to spend eternity pouring water into a bottomless vessel. Ixion was attached by Zeus to a burning wheel which turned eternally in the Underworld.
p 196 | Trois Quartiers shop in Paris.
p 203 | midinette : Parisian seamstress or salesgirl in a clothes shop (French, from midi [noon] + dinette [light meal], since the girls had time for no more than a snack at midday). © Collins English Dictionary,, 12th ed, 2014
p 205 | Lamoureux concert = an orchestral concert society which once gave weekly concerts by its own orchestra, founded in Paris by Charles Lamoureux in 1881.
p 205 | The Longjumeau Postilion: An 1836 comic opera by Adolphe Adam. In 1915, the critic Frederic Masson wrote that this work compared to Wagner's Die Meistersinger.
p 207 | Human Comedy (title of Balzac's collected novels); The Legend of the Centuries (a collection of narrative poems by Victor Hugo); The Bible of Humanity (imaginative attempt at a synthesis of human history by Jules Michelet)
p 210 | 120 hp Mystère : a make of aircraft.
p 210 | L 'Education sentimentale: in Flaubert's novel of that name, the woman the hero loves sees in his house a portrait of a former mistress of his, whom she had known. She says, "I've seen that woman somewhere," but he replies, "Impossible, it's an old Italian painting."
p 196 | Trois Quartiers shop in Paris.
p 203 | midinette : Parisian seamstress or salesgirl in a clothes shop (French, from midi [noon] + dinette [light meal], since the girls had time for no more than a snack at midday). © Collins English Dictionary,, 12th ed, 2014
p 205 | Lamoureux concert = an orchestral concert society which once gave weekly concerts by its own orchestra, founded in Paris by Charles Lamoureux in 1881.
p 205 | The Longjumeau Postilion: An 1836 comic opera by Adolphe Adam. In 1915, the critic Frederic Masson wrote that this work compared to Wagner's Die Meistersinger.
p 207 | Human Comedy (title of Balzac's collected novels); The Legend of the Centuries (a collection of narrative poems by Victor Hugo); The Bible of Humanity (imaginative attempt at a synthesis of human history by Jules Michelet)
p 210 | 120 hp Mystère : a make of aircraft.
p 210 | L 'Education sentimentale: in Flaubert's novel of that name, the woman the hero loves sees in his house a portrait of a former mistress of his, whom she had known. She says, "I've seen that woman somewhere," but he replies, "Impossible, it's an old Italian painting."
The Captive V pp 156-168
p 161 | Prunier Restaurant in Paris specialized in seafood.
p 161 | Here's mackerel! (Il arrive le maquereau) = a pun because maquereau is French slang for a pimp, hence his thought wanders to the chauffeur.
p 161 | Cos lettuce=Romaine
p 162 | Praeceptis salutaribus moniti et divina institutione formati audemus dicere : "Instructed by Thy saving precepts, and following Thy divine institution, we are bold to say..." This is the opening to the Lord's Prayer in the Mass liturgy.
p 162 | Suave mari magno="How pleasant when on a great sea..." (Lucretius). These opening lines of Book II of Lucretius' poem De rerum naturae observe how pleasant it is, when we are on dry land, to watch another man battling to stay afloat in a stormy sea. Though the poet was commending not schadenfreude but philosophical detachment, the phrase is used proverbially to allude to someone who takes pleasure in the suffering of others. Proust, however, seems here to be using it literally and not figuratively. (Clark)
p 163 | Chasselas = White wine grape
p 163 | Rebattet, 12, rue du Faubourg- Saint-Honore. A very
fashionable pastry shop.
p 164 | "... ices not hawked in the street..." : small ices, to be eaten immediately, were certainly sold in the street before 1900: there is a 19th century photo of an ice-cream man with his cart by Eugene Atget. But what the characters are discussing here are sizeable, elaborate iced desserts sold in expensive shops. Scroll down on this page to see an example.
Eugene Atget p 165 | Monte Rosa is a huge ice-covered mountain in the Alps.
p 167 | Scheherazade is the fictional narrator of the Arabian Nights, a book which Proust loved both as a child and as an adult. She made up a new tale for 1001 nights to avoid being killed by the king.
p 168 | "...consecration-cross of his wheel = the steering-wheel of some cars at this time was cruciform, with no outer ring. Others were stylized, with a circle enclosing a cross.p 168 ff: The Palace at Versailles; Grand Trianon at Versailles;
Petit Trianon at Versailles
Hôtel des Réservoirs at Versailles
Vatel
10.28.2016
The Captive V pp 147-156
p 147-49 | "Boris Godunov . . . Pelléas": Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov was
first performed in Paris in 1908, Debussy's Pelléas et Melisande in
1902, but Proust first heard them in 1911-13, when he was first working
on The Captive. The novelty of these music-dramas was that they did not
observe the old operatic distinction between recitative and aria, but
were through-composed (songs composed without repetitions, i.e., using different music for each verse), their essential dialogue delivered with only
small variations of pitch. (Clark)
In Pelléas et Mélisande, instead of a librettist adapting the original play for him, Debussy chose to set the text directly, since Maeterlinck's play was in prose rather than verse. This contributes to the most famous feature of the opera: the almost complete absence of arias or set pieces... Instead, Debussy set the text one note to a syllable in a "continuous, fluid 'cantilena', somewhere between chant and recitative". (Wikipedia)
p 148 | Jean-Phillipe Rameau: these words appear in Phillipe Quinault's libretto Armide, set to music first by Lully in 1686 and then by Gluck in 1777 (not in an opera by Rameau, as Proust seems to have thought). (Clark)
p 149 | "...Arkel . . . Golaud ... the King of Allemande...": characters in Pelléas et Melisande. (Clark)
p 149 | Per omnia saecula saeculorum = for ever and ever, through all ages of ages, world without end; Requiescat in pace = May he/she rest in peace. Both phrases conclude prayers for the dead, both usually intoned with the last syllable falling a minor third, and followed by "Amen." (Clark)
p 149 | Cerement= Usually plural: a waxy cloth used for wrapping the dead, or any burial garments (Hamlet, act 1, sc 4)
p 150 | Costermonger: a person who sells goods, especially fruit and vegetables, from a handcart in the street.
p 150 | Antiphonary=one of 3 liturgical books used for the Divine Office (the others being the breviary & the choir psalter). The antiphonary contains, among other elements, antiphons, which are short sentences sung or recited before or after a psalm or canticle. Antiphonaries are fairly large so they are easily read by all members of a choir. Trivium= the lower division of the 7 liberal arts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric (input, process, and output). Subjects of the trivium are the foundation for the quadrivium, the upper division of the medieval education in the liberal arts, which comprised arithmetic (number), geometry (number in space), music (number in time), and astronomy (number in space and time). Educationally, the trivium and the quadrivium imparted to the student the 7 liberal arts of classical antiquity.
Tinker = (especially in former times) a person who travels from place to place mending metal utensils as a way of making a living.
p 152 | "What insolent mortal comes to meet his doom?" "Was it for you this stern decree was made?" "In you alone, a certain grace I see/That always charms and never wearies me." (Lines from Esther by Racine). (Clark)
p 155 | Hippolyte Taine (1828–93): critic and historian, who had a profound effect on French literature. George Eliot, pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans (1819-80): English Victorian novelist who developed the method of psychological analysis characteristic of modern fiction.
p 156 | Mnemotechnia: a goddess not only of memory (time past) but of method (technia): she offers a way of remembering and recording the passage of time. (Ellen Eve Frank, Literary Architecture)
In Pelléas et Mélisande, instead of a librettist adapting the original play for him, Debussy chose to set the text directly, since Maeterlinck's play was in prose rather than verse. This contributes to the most famous feature of the opera: the almost complete absence of arias or set pieces... Instead, Debussy set the text one note to a syllable in a "continuous, fluid 'cantilena', somewhere between chant and recitative". (Wikipedia)
p 148 | Jean-Phillipe Rameau: these words appear in Phillipe Quinault's libretto Armide, set to music first by Lully in 1686 and then by Gluck in 1777 (not in an opera by Rameau, as Proust seems to have thought). (Clark)
p 149 | "...Arkel . . . Golaud ... the King of Allemande...": characters in Pelléas et Melisande. (Clark)
p 149 | Per omnia saecula saeculorum = for ever and ever, through all ages of ages, world without end; Requiescat in pace = May he/she rest in peace. Both phrases conclude prayers for the dead, both usually intoned with the last syllable falling a minor third, and followed by "Amen." (Clark)
p 149 | Cerement= Usually plural: a waxy cloth used for wrapping the dead, or any burial garments (Hamlet, act 1, sc 4)
p 150 | Costermonger: a person who sells goods, especially fruit and vegetables, from a handcart in the street.
p 150 | Antiphonary=one of 3 liturgical books used for the Divine Office (the others being the breviary & the choir psalter). The antiphonary contains, among other elements, antiphons, which are short sentences sung or recited before or after a psalm or canticle. Antiphonaries are fairly large so they are easily read by all members of a choir. Trivium= the lower division of the 7 liberal arts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric (input, process, and output). Subjects of the trivium are the foundation for the quadrivium, the upper division of the medieval education in the liberal arts, which comprised arithmetic (number), geometry (number in space), music (number in time), and astronomy (number in space and time). Educationally, the trivium and the quadrivium imparted to the student the 7 liberal arts of classical antiquity.
 |
| Basque beret |
p 152 | "What insolent mortal comes to meet his doom?" "Was it for you this stern decree was made?" "In you alone, a certain grace I see/That always charms and never wearies me." (Lines from Esther by Racine). (Clark)
p 155 | Hippolyte Taine (1828–93): critic and historian, who had a profound effect on French literature. George Eliot, pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans (1819-80): English Victorian novelist who developed the method of psychological analysis characteristic of modern fiction.
p 156 | Mnemotechnia: a goddess not only of memory (time past) but of method (technia): she offers a way of remembering and recording the passage of time. (Ellen Eve Frank, Literary Architecture)
8.28.2016
The Captive V pp 133-147
 |
| The old Palais du Trocadéro |
p 135 | Empfindung = sensation, feeling, emotion; empfindelei = sentimentality.
p 135 | "...plants which bifurcate..." :
 |
| Photo: Parisian Fields |
p 146 | "... iron shutters.... lowered..."
p 147 | Booksellers' door of Rouen Cathedral... (Escalier de la Librairie)
 |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/cloudsoup/3441624647/ |
8.27.2016
The Captive V pp 109-132
 |
| p 124 | François Boucher, "The Letter"; |
 |
| Honoré Fragonard "The Harpsichord" |
p 124 | History of the Telephone ; Telephone exchanges; Switchboard operators
p 127 | "... angel musicians mounting to the throne of God..." maybe something like....
 |
St John Altarpiece by Memling |
 |
| detail of Mary, Queen of Heaven by Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy |
p 127 | black satin dress
p 130 | Le Bon Marché (tr. "the good market" or "the good deal") is a department store in Paris. Founded in 1852 by Aristide Boucicaut, it was the first modern department store.
 |
| Le Bon Marché |
 |
| Trois-Quartiers |
p 131 | rest cures for neurotics...
p 132 | aerodrome; early aviation 
8.06.2016
The Captive V pp 84-109
p 88 | Rosita/Radica & Doodica: Siamese twins, young Indian girls, exhibited by Barnum's Circus in 1901-2 and at the World's Fair in 1900.p 90 | 100 francs a day... 5.18 FF - $1 US in 1910, so about $19.30.
p 109 | Vicomte Raymond de Borelli, French soldier & society poet, 1827-1906.
8.05.2016
The Captive V pp 64-83
 |
| Tea-gown |
p 71 | "...young man so learned in matters of racing..." This is OCTAVE, the young golfer at Balbec, nephew of M. Verdurin.
p 75 | Mme Swann's tea-gowns would look very much like this.
Click here to see a sampling of the Met's collection of clothes made by Callot Soeurs, which is what the Duchesse was wearing and the Narrator was learning about.
p 78 | The terrifying jumping girl of Balbec was Andrée (seeWithin a Budding Grove, II p. 508).
p 82 | Tamarisk The genus Tamarix (tamarisk, salt cedar) is composed of about 50–60 species of flowering plants in the family Tamaricaceae, native to drier areas of Eurasia and Africa.
p 83 | "...figures by Benozzo Gozzoli against a greenish background.." possibly from the Medici family's Magi Chapel in Florence.
Robe du soir Doucet, Paris, 1900-1905
8.01.2016
The Captive V pp 47-64
p 47 | "...yellow dress with big black flowers...": Or maybe the black dress with the big yellow flowers...p 47 | "... things from Callot's or Doucet's or Paquin's ...": This wonderful page from the Glamour Daze blog should make everything clear.
p 48 | Lady Warwick was Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, lover of King Edward VII of England. Not sure which Duchess of Marlborough Oriane is referring to; I like this one, so French!
p 52 | The Galeries Lafayette is an upmarket French department store, founded in 1912. Its flagship store is on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.p 52 | This is a little later than the period the book is in... There is some gay French history on the left side of this page.
p 53 | "Xerxes, son of Darius, ordering..." : After the battle of Salamis, the Persian fleet was destroyed by a storm in the Hellespont. Xerxes, the King of Persia, is said to have vented his feelings by having his servants beat the sea with rods.
p 54 | Social classes in 19th century Paris, with a chronology. A little earlier than the book's time setting. Nicely done.
p 54 | "... Jupien's niece had been, when scarcely more than a child, 'in trouble'..." : Consider these historical notes: 1832 - an age of consent is introduced on 28 April, fixed to 11 years for both sexes.
1863 - Age of consent is raised to 13 years.
p 57 | The House of Croy is an international family of European nobility which held a seat in the Imperial Diet from 1486, and was elevated to the rank of Princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1594. In 1913 the family had branches in Belgium, France, Austria and Prussia. And the Princes Murat also.
p 59 | hand cramps in violinists -- a real thing!
p 60 | According to this site, before World War I, when France was firmly on the gold standard, a franc was worth about 19 cents, or 5.18 to the dollar. So, 5000 francs at that time would have been about $950. Earlier, it could have been more, so maybe about $1000.
p 63 | Violinist Jacques Thibaud (1880-1953) can be heard here.
p 64 | Syringa is lilac, pronounced like this. Well, seh-RING-gah.
6.02.2016
The Captive V pp 27-46
p 30 | Elysium (or the Elysian Fields), in Greek mythology, the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous. It was ruled by Cronus.
p 30 | My landlady, Mme de Guermantes: Having originally lived in a different part of Paris, at the beginning of The Guermantes Way, the narrator's family moves to a flat in the Hotel de Guermantes, in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The side ranges of the front courtyard of the old aristocratic town house are now divided into flats and rented to middle-class families, while the ground floor supports small workshops of various kinds. The furthest range is occupied as a single house by the owners, the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes, whom by this point in the story the narrator has got to know. Many of the main characters in the story (the narrator, Albertine, the Guermantes, Jupien and his niece) are thus now living on the same site, and can plausibly watch and/or meet each other on the stairs & in the courtyard. Charlus, brother of the Duc de Guermantes, erstwhile sexual partner of Jupien & protector of his niece, visits them all at this address, which is very convenient for the novelist's purposes, and not implausible; such multiple uses of old aristocratic dwellings was common in Paris throughout the 19th century, and its traces can still be seen in the Marais district, until its recent renovation.
p 31 | Carrying an umbrella was, in the 19th & early 20th centuries, a symbol of bourgeois status. Aristocrats were supposed to ride in carriages, poor people to get wet.
Louis-Philippe, the 'Citizen King', was often caricatured with an umbrella in
his hand.
p 32 | See a selection of early 20th century women's dresses
p 34 | Fortuny's Delphos gown -->
p 35 | Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian writer, 1862-1949; Prosper Mérimée, French author, 1803-70. Paul-Louis Courier, French scholar, 1772-1825)
p 38 | Pampile: pen-name of Mme Leon Daudet, wife of Proust's friend and author of Les bons plats de France: cuisine régionale (1913).
p 41 | coup d'éclat=feat or great feat; coup de tête=whim; coup de force = a sudden, violent act; rapprochement=establishment or resumption of harmonious relations, reconciliation
p 42 } The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that from its beginning in 1894 divided France until it was finally resolved in 1906. [So, we think it's 1908-ish here in the text.]
p 44 | In the Aeneid, Achates ("good, faithful Achates", fidus Achates as he was called) was a close friend of Aeneas; his name became a byword for an intimate companion.
p 45 | Mayer Alphonse James Rothschild (1827-1905)
p 46 | Jupiter Tonans = Thundering Jove: the aspect of Jupiter (Jove) who is the god of sky & thunder and king of the gods in ancient Roman religion & mythology. Here, it refers back to Basin knitting his Jupiterian brows on p 44.
p 46 | Édouard Adolphe Drumont (1844–1917) was a French journalist and writer. He founded the Antisemitic League of France in 1889, and was the founder & editor of the newspaper La Libre Parole.
p 30 | My landlady, Mme de Guermantes: Having originally lived in a different part of Paris, at the beginning of The Guermantes Way, the narrator's family moves to a flat in the Hotel de Guermantes, in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The side ranges of the front courtyard of the old aristocratic town house are now divided into flats and rented to middle-class families, while the ground floor supports small workshops of various kinds. The furthest range is occupied as a single house by the owners, the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes, whom by this point in the story the narrator has got to know. Many of the main characters in the story (the narrator, Albertine, the Guermantes, Jupien and his niece) are thus now living on the same site, and can plausibly watch and/or meet each other on the stairs & in the courtyard. Charlus, brother of the Duc de Guermantes, erstwhile sexual partner of Jupien & protector of his niece, visits them all at this address, which is very convenient for the novelist's purposes, and not implausible; such multiple uses of old aristocratic dwellings was common in Paris throughout the 19th century, and its traces can still be seen in the Marais district, until its recent renovation.
p 32 | See a selection of early 20th century women's dresses
p 34 | Fortuny's Delphos gown -->
 |
| Delphos |
p 38 | Pampile: pen-name of Mme Leon Daudet, wife of Proust's friend and author of Les bons plats de France: cuisine régionale (1913).
p 41 | coup d'éclat=feat or great feat; coup de tête=whim; coup de force = a sudden, violent act; rapprochement=establishment or resumption of harmonious relations, reconciliation
p 42 } The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that from its beginning in 1894 divided France until it was finally resolved in 1906. [So, we think it's 1908-ish here in the text.]
p 44 | In the Aeneid, Achates ("good, faithful Achates", fidus Achates as he was called) was a close friend of Aeneas; his name became a byword for an intimate companion.
p 45 | Mayer Alphonse James Rothschild (1827-1905)
p 46 | Jupiter Tonans = Thundering Jove: the aspect of Jupiter (Jove) who is the god of sky & thunder and king of the gods in ancient Roman religion & mythology. Here, it refers back to Basin knitting his Jupiterian brows on p 44.
p 46 | Édouard Adolphe Drumont (1844–1917) was a French journalist and writer. He founded the Antisemitic League of France in 1889, and was the founder & editor of the newspaper La Libre Parole.
5.12.2016
The Captive V pp 1-27
p 3 | Russian ballet=Ballets Russes
p 3 | "Les douleur sont des folles/Et qui les écoute est encore plus fou." Albertine hums this refrain from Biniou, by Hippolyte Guérin, music by Emile Durand (1830-1903).
p 4 | "Une chanson d'adieu sort des sources troublées..." From Pensée d'automne by Armand Silvestre, music by Jules Massenet, French opera composer, 1842-1912.
p 13 | Assuerus = Ahasuerus, King of Persia, in the play Esther, by Racine., here Act I, Scene 3
p 15 | Parc des Buttes Chaumont: 5th largest park in Paris, opened in 1867. The park took its name from the bleak hill on the site, which, because of the soil's chemical composition, was almost bare of vegetation; it was called Chauve-mont, or bare hill.
p 16 | coalheaver = one who feeds coal into a furnace
p 20 | Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah were cities named in the Bible, the Torah and other religious texts, destroyed by God in fire and brimstone because of their lack of hospitality & wickedness. Proust here seems to be using it to refer to the rampant lesbianism he imagined at Balbec.
p 27 | Arquebus : an early muzzle-loaded firearm, sensitive to humidity.
p 3 | "Les douleur sont des folles/Et qui les écoute est encore plus fou." Albertine hums this refrain from Biniou, by Hippolyte Guérin, music by Emile Durand (1830-1903).
p 4 | "Une chanson d'adieu sort des sources troublées..." From Pensée d'automne by Armand Silvestre, music by Jules Massenet, French opera composer, 1842-1912.
p 13 | Assuerus = Ahasuerus, King of Persia, in the play Esther, by Racine., here Act I, Scene 3
p 15 | Parc des Buttes Chaumont: 5th largest park in Paris, opened in 1867. The park took its name from the bleak hill on the site, which, because of the soil's chemical composition, was almost bare of vegetation; it was called Chauve-mont, or bare hill.
p 16 | coalheaver = one who feeds coal into a furnace
p 20 | Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah were cities named in the Bible, the Torah and other religious texts, destroyed by God in fire and brimstone because of their lack of hospitality & wickedness. Proust here seems to be using it to refer to the rampant lesbianism he imagined at Balbec.
p 27 | Arquebus : an early muzzle-loaded firearm, sensitive to humidity.
4.12.2016
Sodom and Gomorrah IV pp 692-
p 703 | 1889 Exhibition = The Exposition Universelle of 1889 was a world's fair held in Paris from 6 May to 31 October 1889.Sapphism in 19th century France
4.10.2016
Sodom and Gomorrah IV pp 662-691
 |
| Berthe de Clinchamp, |
p 666 | The La Trémoilles became heirs to the Kings of Naples in 1605; their descent from the Comtes de Poitiers is uncertain. Uzès did not become a duchy until 1572.
p 667 | The first Duc de Luynes was created in 1619. The Choiseuls, the Harcourts, the La Rochefoucaulds... are families who traced their origins back to the 10th century. ...the Noailles ... the Montesquious, the Castellanes can be traced back to the 11th century.
p 667 | Vatefairefiche = va-te-faire-fiche means "Scram!" (Gotoblazes). Turning Cambremer into Cambremerde is a vulgarization of the name.
p 668 | Scènes de la vie de province is one of the major sections of Balzac's Comédie Humaine. La Muse du département is part of the Scènes de la vie de province; its heroine, Mme de la Baudraye, writes literary essays and has an adulterous love affair. Mme de Bargeton is a character in Illusions perdues, a provincial wife who becomes the lover of the young hero, Lucien de Rubempré. Mme de Mortsauf was the heroine of Le Lys dans la vallée, who overcomes her passion for the young Félix de Vandenesse and dies a saintly death.
p 672 | Berthe de Clinchamp, companion of the Duchesse d'Aumale, came eventually to run the Duc's household, and in 1899 published a memoir of him: Le Duc d'Aumale, prince, soldat.p 673 | In media stat virtus = virtue lies in the middle.
p 674 | ... M. Moreau, Morille, Morue...: Moreau can mean a horse's nosebag; a morille is a morel (mushroom); morue is a codfish.
p 681 | Subaltern = an officer in the British army below the rank of captain, especially a second lieutenant. Saint-Cyr = military academy where French Army officers are trained.
p 688 | Pont-l'Éveque: Éveque is French for "bishop." Childhood of Christ is an oratorio written by Berlioz between 1850 and 1854; L'Enchantement du Vendredi Saint, or The Good Friday Music forms part of Act III of Wagner's opera Parsifal, but is sometimes performed separately, especially at Easter.
 | |
| King Louis IX |
p 689 | Rue de Blancs-Manteaux: literally, White Mantles or White Friars, a Carmelite order.
p 690 | Saint Louis = Louis IX, King of France 1226-70, canonized in 1287.
p 690 | Felix de Rochegude's 20-volume work Promenades dans toutes les rues de Paris (1910). The street Charlus can't remember was the rue des Rosiers & "du Rozier'' later will become the name Bloch takes to hide his Jewishness. Though not a Jew, Rembrandt lived in the Amsterdam's Jewish quarter & painted Jewish subjects. Legend about a 13th century Jew convicted of burning a consecrated Host, which was itself miraculously preserved.
p 690 | According to Rochegude, this Louis I d'Orléans (1372-1407) was murdered by Jean sans Peur on coming out from supper with Isabeau de Bavière, his sister-in-law & mistress. The Duc de Chartres (1840-1910) was the grandson of Louis-Philippe, Duc d'Orléans (also known as Philippe-Égalité, 1747-1793), and not obviously related to Charlus.
N.B. All entries based primarily based on Sturrock's notes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
