Continuing Characters Baudelaire (BB p 1) After Charles Baudelaire, French poet and author. Baudelaire was actually the man who also translated Edgar Allan Poe into French.
Charles Baudelaire was a 19th century French poet, translator, and literary and art critic whose reputation rests primarily on Les Fleurs du Mal; (1857;The Flowers of Evil) which was perhaps the most important and influential poetry collection published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his Petits poèmes en prose (1868; "Little Prose Poems") was the most successful and innovative early experiment in prose poetry of the time. Known for his highly controversial, and often dark poetry, as well as his translation of the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire's life was filled with drama and strife, from financial disaster to being prosecuted for obscenity and blasphemy. Long after his death many look upon his name as representing depravity and vice: Others see him as being the poet of modern civilization, seeming to speak directly to the 20th century... Baudelaire's father died in February of 1827 His mother Caroline married a career soldier named Jacques Aspic...Baudelaire's continuing extravagance exhausted half his fortune in two years, and he also fell prey to cheats and moneylenders, thus laying the foundation for an accumulation of debt that would cripple him for the rest of his life. In September 1844 his family imposed on him a legal arrangement that restricted his access to his inheritance and effectively made of him a legal minor. (from http://www.empirezine.com/spotlight/bau/bau-bio.htm
Poe (BB p 6) After Edgar Allan Poe, who learned how to scare the heck out of people in five minutes or less. Another homage to Poe is memorialized in Mr. Poes two sons, Edgar and Albert. Though, this is because Albert was the name of the real Edgar Allen Poe's borther. Also, in LSUA, We see that Mr. Poe's first name is Arthur, and his sister's is Elenora. E and A. Hmmm...
Best known for his poems and short fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston, Jan. 19, 1809, died Oct. 7, 1849 in Baltimore, deserves more credit than any other writer for the transformation of the short story from anecdote to art. He virtually created the detective story with his Detective Dupin stories, and perfected the psychological thriller.
Klaus and Sunny (BB p 1) After Claus and Sunny von Bulow. Danish-born aristocrat Claus von Bulow made headlines in the mid-'80s, when he was accused of trying to murder his diabetic wife, Sunny von Bulow, by injecting her with a deadly dose of insulin.
"Prosecutors were convinced von Bulow wanted to murder his wealthy wife in order to inherit millions of dollars and marry his longtime mistress, Alexandra Isles, a former soap opera actress." (Thanks Efogoto!)
Violet (BB p 1) Violet was the name of one of the lawyers at the von Bulow trial
Beatrice (BB Dedication) A poet in the land of Tuscany by the name of Dante (Thanks Sophie!), wrote a story called The Divine Comedy. It was about his desire to be with a woman who didn't love him back. He traveled through Heaven, Hell and Purgatory to win her love. Her name? Beatrice.
Furthermore, Charles Baudelaire wrote a poem named "La Béatrice" also based on Béatrice of Dante.
Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321, Italian poet, author of The Divine Comedy. In 1290, after the death of his exalted Beatrice (Beatrice Portinari, 1266-90), he plunged into the study of philosophy and poetry. Politically active in Florence from 1295, he was banished in 1302 and became a citizen of all Italy. The Divine Comedy, a poem in 100 cantos (more than 14,000 lines), was composed in exile. It is the tale of the poet's journey through Hell and Purgatory (guided by Vergil) and through Heaven (guided by Beatrice, to whom the poem is a memorial.) Written in a complex form, it is a magnificent synthesis of the medieval outlook, picturing a changeless universe ordered by God. His works also include La vita nuova (c.1292), a collection of prose and lyrics celebrating Beatrice and ideal love; treatises on language and politics; eclogues; and epistles. (from http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/dante/)
Dante received a thorough education in both classical and Christian literature. At the age of 12 he was promised to his future wife, Gemma Donati. Dante had already fallen in love with another girl whom he called Beatrice. She was 9 years old. Years later Dante met Beatrice again. He had become interested in writing verse, and although he wrote several sonnets to Beatrice, he never mentioned his wife Gemma in any of his poems. The work, LA VITA NUOVA (1292), celebrated Dante's love for Beatrice. The nature of his love had its roots in the medieval concept of "courtly love" and the idealization of women. According to another theory, Beatrice was actually a symbol of 'Santa Sapienza', which united secret societies of the day. Harold Bloom in The Western Canon (1994) sees Beatrice as Dante's greatest muse, his invention, who saved him "by giving him his greatest image for poetry, and he saved her from oblivion, little as she may have wanted such salvation." Dante married in 1285 Gemma Donati but his ideal lady and inspiration for his poetry was Beatrice Portinari. She married Simone dei Bardi in 1287; she was his second wife. When Dante was asked why he still continued unhappily to love her, he answered: "Ladies, the end of my love was indeed the greeting of this lady, of whom you are perhaps thinking, and in that greeting lay my beatitude, for it was the end of all my desires. But because it pleased her to deny it to me, my Lord Love in his mercy has placed all my beatitude in that which cannot fail me." Beatrice died in June 1290, at the age of 24. After Beatrice's death, Dante withdrew into intense study and began composing poems dedicated to her memory. (from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dante.htm)
Count Olaf (BB p 14) There's a Count Olaf in the novel "Avatar" written by Théophile Gautier, who was a good friend of Charles Baudelaire.
The Bad Beginning Shakespeare's Macbeth (BB p 87) On the level of human evil, Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy is about Macbeth's bloody rise to power, including the murder of the Scottish king, Duncan, and the guilt-ridden pathology of evil deeds generating still more evil deeds. (from http://www.allshakespeare.com/macbeth.php)
Actors in the play are warned not to say "Macbeth" when out of character in the theater. If they do, accidents will happen. Most of these superstitions grew out of the nature of the play itself, said Richard Nichols, theatre arts professor. "The superstitions are connected with the reality that the play is dangerous," Nichols said. "There's a lot of weapons work and other physical activities associated with the play that just seem to have brought out the emergency squad." (from http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/1997/11/11-14-97tdc/11-14-97d05-001.asp)
Carrot or Stick (BB p 108) For information (and debate) on the origin (and correct interpretation) of this image see http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/carrot.html
Olaf's Taste in Art (BB p 123) In the picture of the paintings on the wall of Olaf's tower room, there are several allusions. The most obvious is the one with the melting eyes which is a copy of Dali's Persistance of Memory. Then there is the one with a grid of at least 15 eyes, which brought Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans to mind. Finally, there is a visual pun *groan* that it's all "Op Art" Please let us know if you see any other paintings you recognize.
Persistance of Memory by Salvador Dali To view this painting click here
Op ArtA writer for Time magazine coined the term "Op Art" in a 1964 article anticipating an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The popular show, entitled "The Responsive Eye," prominently featured works by Optical artists who, beginning in the late 1950s and 1960s, created paintings and graphic designs that effectively played with the way human beings see. With machine-like precision, Op artists painted swirling lines and checkered grids that seemed to flicker and vibrate, heave and billow, and change color. Op artists made a direct appeal to the spectator; they relied upon viewers' eyes to complete their works, to physiologically dissolve and expand the space between lines, to mix colors, and to generate afterimages. "There must be no more productions exclusively for the cultivated eye, the sensitive eye, the intellectual eye..." wrote the Groupe de Recherche in their 1964 Op manifesto. "The human eye is our point of departure."
Andy Worhol and Pop Art A style derived from commercial art forms and characterised by larger than life replicas of items from mass culture. This style evolved in the late 1950s and was characterised in the 1960s by such artists as Andy Warhol, and others. To see his Campbell's soup cans go here
The Reptile Room Roger Acriod (RR p ) In The Reptile Room, at one point, Sunny says "Acroid!" Which translates into "Roger!" The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is possibly Agatha Christie's most fiendishly plotted novel.
We have a separate page for Sunny Sayings if you'd like to see more.
Virginian Wolfsnake (RR p ) Virginian Wolfsnake--"[Uncle Monty] taught them...to never, under any circumstances, let the Virginian Wolfsnake near a typewriter." A modern feminist novelist who died at the onset of World War II, Virginia Woolf was also a prolific essayist and woman of letters. Her prose is very formal and austere, and is characterised by a 'stream-of-consciousness' style.
The Wide Window Dr. Lorenz (WW p ) "The principles of the convergence and refraction of light are very confusing, and quite frankly I can't head or tail of them, even when my friend Dr. Lorenz explains them to me."
"Lorenz, Ludwig Valentine (1829-1891) Danish mathematician and physicist. He developed mathematical formulae to describe phenomena such as the relation between the refraction of light and the density of a pure transparent substance"
Damocles Dock (WW p ) Damocles was your basic brown-nosing suck-up toady who proclaimed Dionysius I, the ruler of Syracuse, the happiest of men. Dionysius decided to make a point by showing him how happy it was to be ruler of a Greek city-state by inviting him to a banquet and seating him beneath a sword suspended by a single thread. Danger looming over the hero's head by a thread... sound familiar?
The Miserable Mill Dr. Georgina Orwell George Orwell was probably the most prophetic writer of the early 1900's. He wrote Animal Farm, which was an analogy towards the world at the time, and he was pretty accurate with what he thought might happen later on. His novel 1984 was his prediction of what life would be like in 1984. He was more accurate then most people gave him credit for at the time, and that's pretty scary, if you haven't read the book.
Great Gatsby Dr. Georgina Orwell's Sign reminds us of Dr. Eckelberg, Oculist, whose eyes hang out over the land between West Egg and New York City in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
The Austere Academy Oliver Twist The very cover of TAA itself is an homage to Charles Dicken's classic Oliver Twist, in which Olvier approaches the mean tyrannical supervisor at his orphanage and dares to ask, "Please sir, can I have some more?"
Nero Vice Principal Nero: Nero was your basic self-obsessed Roman Emperor who by legend fiddled while Rome burned.
Prufrock Prufrock Prep: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. "Fear in a handful of dust" Eliot.
I was listening to Whaddaya Know with Michael Fledman on NPR today, and they said that Eliot got the name "Prufrock" from a furniture store!
Isadora Duncan Isadora Duncan: A woman who revolutionized modern dance She was famous for wearing long flowing scarves, so one dayshe was driving in her car with the window open. Well her scarve caught in the wheels, if she was either pulled out of the car, or she was just strangled in her seat. Either way, the important part is that she died, and in a freakish accident. (Thanks Sophie!)
Dancer Angela Isadora Duncan was born in 1877 in San Francisco, California Tragically, Isadora's life was cut short in 1927 in a car accident along the Riveria: her long scarf was cought in the rear wheels of her car and strangled her as it dragged her out of the car to the street. For more info about the freak accident see http://www.aarrgghh.com/no_way/duncan.htm For more info about her life see http://www.isadoraduncan.org/About_Isadora/Isadora_bio/isadora_bio.html
Momento Mori This concept appears so much in literature you wonder where to begin. Probably my favorite use of Memento Mori is that it was the title of the short story that inspired the movie Memento,one of the COOLEST movies ever.
Genghis Coach Genghis--Genghis Khan was the originator and leader of the Mongolian Empire (12th century).
The Ersatz Elevator Jerome and Esme Squalor JD Salinger's story "For Esme - With Love and Squalor" (In Nine Stories). The J stands for Jerome in JD.
667 Dark Avenue 667 Dark Avenue: In the Book of Revelations 666 is the number of the Beast who persecutes the believers.
Let Them Eat Cake As the Bauds climb the stairs, they hear someone behind a door say "Let them eat cake!" Marie Antoinette, the French Queen in the late 18th century, just before the French Revolution, was told by her courtiers that starving people in the streets had no bread, while the nobility dined on Elephant taken from the zoo. Her reply was to "Let them Eat Cake!" This cluelessness led to her eventual beheading.
Lot 49 Lot 49: Thomas Pynchon -- who told a story called The Crying of Lot 49
Charles Baudelaire was a 19th century French poet, translator, and literary and art critic whose reputation rests primarily on Les Fleurs du Mal; (1857;The Flowers of Evil) which was perhaps the most important and influential poetry collection published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his Petits poèmes en prose (1868; "Little Prose Poems") was the most successful and innovative early experiment in prose poetry of the time. Known for his highly controversial, and often dark poetry, as well as his translation of the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire's life was filled with drama and strife, from financial disaster to being prosecuted for obscenity and blasphemy. Long after his death many look upon his name as representing depravity and vice: Others see him as being the poet of modern civilization, seeming to speak directly to the 20th century... Baudelaire's father died in February of 1827 His mother Caroline married a career soldier named Jacques Aspic...Baudelaire's continuing extravagance exhausted half his fortune in two years, and he also fell prey to cheats and moneylenders, thus laying the foundation for an accumulation of debt that would cripple him for the rest of his life. In September 1844 his family imposed on him a legal arrangement that restricted his access to his inheritance and effectively made of him a legal minor. (from http://www.empirezine.com/spotlight/bau/bau-bio.htm
Poe (BB p 6) After Edgar Allan Poe, who learned how to scare the heck out of people in five minutes or less. Another homage to Poe is memorialized in Mr. Poes two sons, Edgar and Albert. Though, this is because Albert was the name of the real Edgar Allen Poe's borther. Also, in LSUA, We see that Mr. Poe's first name is Arthur, and his sister's is Elenora. E and A. Hmmm...
Best known for his poems and short fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston, Jan. 19, 1809, died Oct. 7, 1849 in Baltimore, deserves more credit than any other writer for the transformation of the short story from anecdote to art. He virtually created the detective story with his Detective Dupin stories, and perfected the psychological thriller.
Klaus and Sunny (BB p 1) After Claus and Sunny von Bulow. Danish-born aristocrat Claus von Bulow made headlines in the mid-'80s, when he was accused of trying to murder his diabetic wife, Sunny von Bulow, by injecting her with a deadly dose of insulin.
"Prosecutors were convinced von Bulow wanted to murder his wealthy wife in order to inherit millions of dollars and marry his longtime mistress, Alexandra Isles, a former soap opera actress." (Thanks Efogoto!)
Violet (BB p 1) Violet was the name of one of the lawyers at the von Bulow trial
Beatrice (BB Dedication) A poet in the land of Tuscany by the name of Dante (Thanks Sophie!), wrote a story called The Divine Comedy. It was about his desire to be with a woman who didn't love him back. He traveled through Heaven, Hell and Purgatory to win her love. Her name? Beatrice.
Furthermore, Charles Baudelaire wrote a poem named "La Béatrice" also based on Béatrice of Dante.
Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321, Italian poet, author of The Divine Comedy. In 1290, after the death of his exalted Beatrice (Beatrice Portinari, 1266-90), he plunged into the study of philosophy and poetry. Politically active in Florence from 1295, he was banished in 1302 and became a citizen of all Italy. The Divine Comedy, a poem in 100 cantos (more than 14,000 lines), was composed in exile. It is the tale of the poet's journey through Hell and Purgatory (guided by Vergil) and through Heaven (guided by Beatrice, to whom the poem is a memorial.) Written in a complex form, it is a magnificent synthesis of the medieval outlook, picturing a changeless universe ordered by God. His works also include La vita nuova (c.1292), a collection of prose and lyrics celebrating Beatrice and ideal love; treatises on language and politics; eclogues; and epistles. (from http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/dante/)
Dante received a thorough education in both classical and Christian literature. At the age of 12 he was promised to his future wife, Gemma Donati. Dante had already fallen in love with another girl whom he called Beatrice. She was 9 years old. Years later Dante met Beatrice again. He had become interested in writing verse, and although he wrote several sonnets to Beatrice, he never mentioned his wife Gemma in any of his poems. The work, LA VITA NUOVA (1292), celebrated Dante's love for Beatrice. The nature of his love had its roots in the medieval concept of "courtly love" and the idealization of women. According to another theory, Beatrice was actually a symbol of 'Santa Sapienza', which united secret societies of the day. Harold Bloom in The Western Canon (1994) sees Beatrice as Dante's greatest muse, his invention, who saved him "by giving him his greatest image for poetry, and he saved her from oblivion, little as she may have wanted such salvation." Dante married in 1285 Gemma Donati but his ideal lady and inspiration for his poetry was Beatrice Portinari. She married Simone dei Bardi in 1287; she was his second wife. When Dante was asked why he still continued unhappily to love her, he answered: "Ladies, the end of my love was indeed the greeting of this lady, of whom you are perhaps thinking, and in that greeting lay my beatitude, for it was the end of all my desires. But because it pleased her to deny it to me, my Lord Love in his mercy has placed all my beatitude in that which cannot fail me." Beatrice died in June 1290, at the age of 24. After Beatrice's death, Dante withdrew into intense study and began composing poems dedicated to her memory. (from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dante.htm)
Count Olaf (BB p 14) There's a Count Olaf in the novel "Avatar" written by Théophile Gautier, who was a good friend of Charles Baudelaire.
The Bad Beginning Shakespeare's Macbeth (BB p 87) On the level of human evil, Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy is about Macbeth's bloody rise to power, including the murder of the Scottish king, Duncan, and the guilt-ridden pathology of evil deeds generating still more evil deeds. (from http://www.allshakespeare.com/macbeth.php)
Actors in the play are warned not to say "Macbeth" when out of character in the theater. If they do, accidents will happen. Most of these superstitions grew out of the nature of the play itself, said Richard Nichols, theatre arts professor. "The superstitions are connected with the reality that the play is dangerous," Nichols said. "There's a lot of weapons work and other physical activities associated with the play that just seem to have brought out the emergency squad." (from http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/1997/11/11-14-97tdc/11-14-97d05-001.asp)
Carrot or Stick (BB p 108) For information (and debate) on the origin (and correct interpretation) of this image see http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/carrot.html
Olaf's Taste in Art (BB p 123) In the picture of the paintings on the wall of Olaf's tower room, there are several allusions. The most obvious is the one with the melting eyes which is a copy of Dali's Persistance of Memory. Then there is the one with a grid of at least 15 eyes, which brought Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans to mind. Finally, there is a visual pun *groan* that it's all "Op Art" Please let us know if you see any other paintings you recognize.
Persistance of Memory by Salvador Dali To view this painting click here
Op ArtA writer for Time magazine coined the term "Op Art" in a 1964 article anticipating an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The popular show, entitled "The Responsive Eye," prominently featured works by Optical artists who, beginning in the late 1950s and 1960s, created paintings and graphic designs that effectively played with the way human beings see. With machine-like precision, Op artists painted swirling lines and checkered grids that seemed to flicker and vibrate, heave and billow, and change color. Op artists made a direct appeal to the spectator; they relied upon viewers' eyes to complete their works, to physiologically dissolve and expand the space between lines, to mix colors, and to generate afterimages. "There must be no more productions exclusively for the cultivated eye, the sensitive eye, the intellectual eye..." wrote the Groupe de Recherche in their 1964 Op manifesto. "The human eye is our point of departure."
Andy Worhol and Pop Art A style derived from commercial art forms and characterised by larger than life replicas of items from mass culture. This style evolved in the late 1950s and was characterised in the 1960s by such artists as Andy Warhol, and others. To see his Campbell's soup cans go here
The Reptile Room Roger Acriod (RR p ) In The Reptile Room, at one point, Sunny says "Acroid!" Which translates into "Roger!" The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is possibly Agatha Christie's most fiendishly plotted novel.
We have a separate page for Sunny Sayings if you'd like to see more.
Virginian Wolfsnake (RR p ) Virginian Wolfsnake--"[Uncle Monty] taught them...to never, under any circumstances, let the Virginian Wolfsnake near a typewriter." A modern feminist novelist who died at the onset of World War II, Virginia Woolf was also a prolific essayist and woman of letters. Her prose is very formal and austere, and is characterised by a 'stream-of-consciousness' style.
The Wide Window Dr. Lorenz (WW p ) "The principles of the convergence and refraction of light are very confusing, and quite frankly I can't head or tail of them, even when my friend Dr. Lorenz explains them to me."
"Lorenz, Ludwig Valentine (1829-1891) Danish mathematician and physicist. He developed mathematical formulae to describe phenomena such as the relation between the refraction of light and the density of a pure transparent substance"
Damocles Dock (WW p ) Damocles was your basic brown-nosing suck-up toady who proclaimed Dionysius I, the ruler of Syracuse, the happiest of men. Dionysius decided to make a point by showing him how happy it was to be ruler of a Greek city-state by inviting him to a banquet and seating him beneath a sword suspended by a single thread. Danger looming over the hero's head by a thread... sound familiar?
The Miserable Mill Dr. Georgina Orwell George Orwell was probably the most prophetic writer of the early 1900's. He wrote Animal Farm, which was an analogy towards the world at the time, and he was pretty accurate with what he thought might happen later on. His novel 1984 was his prediction of what life would be like in 1984. He was more accurate then most people gave him credit for at the time, and that's pretty scary, if you haven't read the book.
Great Gatsby Dr. Georgina Orwell's Sign reminds us of Dr. Eckelberg, Oculist, whose eyes hang out over the land between West Egg and New York City in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
The Austere Academy Oliver Twist The very cover of TAA itself is an homage to Charles Dicken's classic Oliver Twist, in which Olvier approaches the mean tyrannical supervisor at his orphanage and dares to ask, "Please sir, can I have some more?"
Nero Vice Principal Nero: Nero was your basic self-obsessed Roman Emperor who by legend fiddled while Rome burned.
Prufrock Prufrock Prep: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. "Fear in a handful of dust" Eliot.
I was listening to Whaddaya Know with Michael Fledman on NPR today, and they said that Eliot got the name "Prufrock" from a furniture store!
Isadora Duncan Isadora Duncan: A woman who revolutionized modern dance She was famous for wearing long flowing scarves, so one dayshe was driving in her car with the window open. Well her scarve caught in the wheels, if she was either pulled out of the car, or she was just strangled in her seat. Either way, the important part is that she died, and in a freakish accident. (Thanks Sophie!)
Dancer Angela Isadora Duncan was born in 1877 in San Francisco, California Tragically, Isadora's life was cut short in 1927 in a car accident along the Riveria: her long scarf was cought in the rear wheels of her car and strangled her as it dragged her out of the car to the street. For more info about the freak accident see http://www.aarrgghh.com/no_way/duncan.htm For more info about her life see http://www.isadoraduncan.org/About_Isadora/Isadora_bio/isadora_bio.html
Momento Mori This concept appears so much in literature you wonder where to begin. Probably my favorite use of Memento Mori is that it was the title of the short story that inspired the movie Memento,one of the COOLEST movies ever.
Genghis Coach Genghis--Genghis Khan was the originator and leader of the Mongolian Empire (12th century).
The Ersatz Elevator Jerome and Esme Squalor JD Salinger's story "For Esme - With Love and Squalor" (In Nine Stories). The J stands for Jerome in JD.
667 Dark Avenue 667 Dark Avenue: In the Book of Revelations 666 is the number of the Beast who persecutes the believers.
Let Them Eat Cake As the Bauds climb the stairs, they hear someone behind a door say "Let them eat cake!" Marie Antoinette, the French Queen in the late 18th century, just before the French Revolution, was told by her courtiers that starving people in the streets had no bread, while the nobility dined on Elephant taken from the zoo. Her reply was to "Let them Eat Cake!" This cluelessness led to her eventual beheading.
Lot 49 Lot 49: Thomas Pynchon -- who told a story called The Crying of Lot 49