Word: tantalus
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Duncan Phillips notes that in one picture Eilshemius "symbolically depicted himself as adrift, all alone, in a fragile bark rushed along by the fierce currents of wild, rapid waters which swirl around an island under a witching moon. It is a symbol of all futility and frustration under the Tantalus of beauty and romance. It tells of his endless efforts to land on the island of desire...
Kindly Stygian. Betjeman's nostalgia is for the Victorian past; his heart is in its poor remnants, and he frankly calls himself "a case of arrested development." He was raised comfortably in London, great-grandson of a Dutch-descended Englishman who grew rich on inventions such as the tantalus, a contrivance to keep Victorian housemaids out of the port. Betjeman went to Oxford's Magdalen College, where he detested his tutor (Author C. S. Lewis), failed to get a degree because he forgot to take "divvers" (divinity...
Last week the U.S. was seriously considering a new policy of its own which might break the deadlock. The main British weapon against Iran has been the blockade. It has left the Iranians somewhat in the position of Tantalus, who was up to his neck in water but, though dying of thirst, was not able to drink it. The Iranians are up to their necks in oil but, though nearly bankrupt, they cannot sell it, because the British stop any ship that tries to carry the oil to market. The U.S. has tacitly supported the blockade; the new policy would...
...that some of the historical fabric of the picture is fairly enjoyable. It was framed in Berlin itself, and a little of the agony and destruction of the country is caught. A single little shovel digging methodically into an infinite pile of rubble is about as grimly futile as Tantalus' hopeless reach for the fruit...