Harvey Wallbangers and Tam O'Shanters. Martin Hannan
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Though Sir Tim Rice might disagree, William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911) is without doubt the greatest librettist in the history of British musical theatre. His comic operas with Sir Arthur Sullivan delighted audiences with their cleverness that relied on Gilbert’s lyrical trickery. Such sparkling wit relying on word play has often been called ‘Gilbertian’ in the past, but now the word is often used to mean whimsical, which Gilbert rarely was – in his heyday he was renowned, perhaps unfairly, for being abrasive as a person and cutting in his lyrics.
GRADGRINDIAN
The obsessive, soulless Mr Thomas Gradgrind is the schoolmaster and later MP in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times who bellows ‘fact, fact, fact’ at his pupils and is generally inflexible and dictatorial even to his own children. His name has become a byword for sheer toil and a miserable emotionless existence, even though, in Hard Times, Gradgrind himself comes to realise his philosophy is flawed when his daughter Louisa breaks down and repudiates his Gradgrindian approach.
GREGORIAN
This adjective is normally applied to two things – Gregorian chant and the Gregorian calendar. Pope Gregory I (c.540–604AD), known as Saint Gregory the Great, is said to have encouraged the former around the year 600AD as a variety of plainsong or plainchant, the oldest form of vocal music in the Christian Church. Gregory XIII (1502–85) commissioned the revision of the old Julian calendar (see below) and gave his name to the calendar which is now the accepted version worldwide. In order to accommodate the new calendar, 11 days were ‘missed’. The Reformation saw a number of countries refuse to accept the papal decree about the new calendar, so that a dual date system was introduced in a lot of places.
HERCULEAN
The Greek mythological figure Heracles (Latin version Hercules) almost had it all. Semi-divine, stronger and more athletic than any man alive, but perhaps not the brightest spark in the Olympian pantheon. According to the ancient myths, he annoyed the Goddess Hera simply by being the son of a beautiful mortal and her husband Zeus, and she eventually drove Heracles mad, so that he killed his own children. To earn redemption, he was forced to undertake his famous 12 labours, including the cleaning of the Augean stables – they had 1,000 horses and had not been cleaned for 30 years – which he accomplished by diverting a couple of rivers through them. Heracles had many other adventures, including seeking the Gold Fleece with Jason and the Argonauts, and generally went about fighting and killing and having women trouble, not least with Hera, because he was definitely more passionate than intellectual. It is because of his 12 labours that we speak of someone facing a Herculean task.
HOMERIC
Pertaining to the epics of Homer, the most famous of the ancient Greek writers. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey arguably started literature, but we know very little about the author himself. We are not even sure he was blind, as was reported in ancient times. His epic poems, however, have lasted through nearly three millennia, and that is almost Homeric in itself.
JOYCEAN
James Joyce (1882–1941) was an Irish writer who continues to puzzle students of English literature 70 years after his death. His style was revolutionary in its day, and, while many have tried to copy Joycean writing, particularly the stream of consciousness style he devised, none has equalled the man himself.
JUNGIAN
Carl Gustav Jung (1876–1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist who pioneered analytical psychology and developed several important concepts such as the collective unconscious and synchronicity, as well as laying out what makes a person introvert or extrovert. His interest in psychology and mental illness may have been inspired by his mother who was a depressive and complained of being visited by unearthly spirits at night. Spooky.
JUVENALIAN
Juvenal (c.65–135AD) didn’t invent sarcasm, he perfected it. In a series of brilliant writings, he dissected Roman society with wit, personal invective and no little anger. Juvenalian satire has a long tradition in literature, and, though many modern comedians are strictly juvenile, a few do reach juvenalian heights.
KAFKAESQUE
Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was a Prague-born writer who viewed reality as an experience of surreality mixed with menace, and his literary output mixes the absurd and malevolent in an entertaining yet uncomfortable fashion. His background as an insurance assessor gave him plenty of access to the courts and legal systems he savaged in his books, especially The Trial.
Our own age has seen Kafka’s fears writ large. There are times when only the word ‘kafkaesque’ can be used to describe the sinister and bizarre activities of bureaucracies everywhere.
KEYNESIAN
As arguably the single most influential economist of the 20th century, Englishman John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) helped to define the modern age. His concepts on monetary policy and fiscal stimulus won support from politicians and the public alike and he is one of the few economists whose name is generally recognised by those with little interest in economic matters.
LUCULLAN
Roman general and consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus loved a banquet. He gave the very biggest and best in Rome in the first century BC, and his name became associated with everything from orgies to gluttonous feasts, which apparently is what his banquets turned into.
MACABRE
Nowadays we use this word to describe bizarre and strange things in general, but its original meaning in French was specifically to do with death and the gruesomeness of dying. The danse macabre was the Dance of Death, a frequent subject in the art and literature of the 14th and 15th centuries, in which the figure of Death was depicted leading the final dance of poor and rich alike. Given the outbreaks of plague and famine at that time, the Dance of Death was something people anticipated happening to them pretty soon.
Some scholars suggest ‘macabre’ came from the Maccabees, the ancient Jewish family led by Judas Maccabeus whose history and doctrines feature in the Bible, though not in the version of the Bible used by most Protestant denominations.
The Second Book of the Maccabees is heavily concerned with death and dying, and includes prayers for the dead as well as the story of the Maccabean martyrs – seven brothers who were executed along with their mother and teacher – which was a very popular tradition in the Christian Church until the Middle Ages when the word ‘macabre’ first appeared.
Interestingly, the Roman Catholic Church still lists the Holy Maccabees as saints and martyrs, even though they all lived and died decades before Jesus Christ was born. That is not macabre, but certainly bizarre.
MACHIAVELLIAN
Let there be no mistake, ‘machiavellian’ is one eponym which entirely fits the person whose name it bears.
Apologists have often tried to make out that Niccolo di Bernardi dei Machiavelli (1469–1527) was not as bad as he is painted, but you only have to read The Prince to see what a thoroughgoing advocate of chicanery he really was.
His political philosophy advocated rule by a not-so-benign dictator whose dictum should always be ‘it is much safer to be feared than loved’. For Machiavelli, expediency was everything, and scruples were to be retained only as far as it assisted the maintenance of a ruler’s good image. Cruelty was to be a prince’s stock in trade, though pragmatism demanded that the ruler try to avoid losing the respect of his courtiers in particular. He once wrote that ‘force and prudence’ were the qualities of good government.