Word: epithets
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Henry James originally subtitled Daisy Miller as "A Study." Later on, in a 1909 preface to the novella he suppressed the subtitle, claiming it was mere poetic artifice. But he also wrote then that readers might have mistaken the subtitle for a literal epithet to his "poor little heroine's" name, characterized by flatness. "Flatness indeed," wrote James, "one must have felt, was the very sum of her story; so that perhaps after all the attached epithet was meant but as a deprecation, addressed to the reader, of any great critical hope of stirring scenes." If the film had used...
There was an old story going around the track circuit a couple of years back concerning pro football's middle linebacker Tim Rossovich's antics in a certain sprint race out on the west coast. Rossovich, a notorious "flake," to use the sportwriters' cliched epithet, had challenged the foremost sprinters in the nation to a 60-yard dash. As he stepped up to the starting line, he produced a can of STP oil, opened it, and proceeded to down the whole can. When the gun sounded, Rossovich took off with a sluggish start, and finished about three lengths behind...
...progress of From the Diary of a Snail is all too consistent with the author's snail principles. On the way to almost any point, the reader is likely to get a favorite recipe from Chef Grass (simmered tripe with caraway seeds) or a growling epithet on Hegel: "Thanks to his subtlety, every abuse of state power has to this day been explained as historically necessary." Another snail detour documents the diaspora of the Jews of Grass's native Danzig during World War II. Here the narration seems to match the sinister creeping pace of anti-Semitism...
...still lacked the distance that could analyze. I was too busy learning how to cope with my new status--the status of "Beautiful Person," i.e. rich bitch. I found it pinned upon me like an epithet. Glamor, I was discovering, signalled at Harvard a licensed free-for-all for aggressive attention. Be it jealousy or secret sex dreams, contempt just depended on the particular form of the particular insecurity. Glamor got attention all right. Glamor meant a presence to be dealt with, to be talked about, gossiped about, pigeon-holed, and dismissed with a movie magazine's form of voyeurism...
...Free University, known as NOFU. Last spring the Communist Students League staged a public "trial" of the NOFU professors and condemned them as Denunzianten, the term that used to be applied to Gestapo informers. Koenigs went to court and obtained a judicial order banning the use of the epithet on student posters and leaflets...