Main Street (Barnes & Noble Classics Ser - Sinclair Lewis [246]
i
Girls (Latin).
j
Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900), well-known German-born British philologist and Orientalist.
k
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), influential abolitionist and popular American poet, known as “the Quaker Poet.”
l
Greek poet (c.600 B.C.) of Lesbos who wrote about love, often of other women.
m
Queen of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra during the third century A.D., who sought to extend her kingdom into the Roman Empire.
n
Soviet national anthem dating from the Russian Revolution of 1917 until 1944.
o
Idealistic French novelist and socialist sympathizer (1866-1944).
p
Political doctrine that advocated control of industry by labor unions; the syndicalist Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labor), founded in 1895, represented French labor organizations.
q
Les Imagistes were avant-garde poets of the early 1900s led in America by Ezra Pound; other Americans were H. D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961) and Amy Lowell (1874-1925).
r
Mystical religious system that grafted Eastern onto Western thought; the Theosophical Society was founded in 1875.
s
Actually German; here “Dutch” is a corruption of the word deutsch, meaning German.
t
Town in Lewis’s 1919 novel Free Air.
u
Large, expensive automobiles.
v
Slapstick film starring the popular comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle (1887-1933).
w
Clothing made of strong cotton material.
x
Linen.
y
Carol is paraphrasing the 1854 poem “Charge of the Light Brigade,” by English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
z
Trimmed with tassels or other ornaments.
aa
System devised in Gary, Indiana, for maximizing the use of school buildings.
ab
Phoebe Anne Oakley Moses (1860-1926), sharpshooter and star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
ac
Daring hunter, originally from the Bible; see Genesis 10:8-10.
ad
“An Old Sweetheart of Mine,” a sentimental poem by American poet James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916).
ae
Actually Llewellin, a type of English hunting setter.
af
American businessman, writer, and aesthete (1856-1925), whose popular essay A Message to Garcia (1899) was inspirational among American businessmen of the period.
ag
Sadness over the state of the world, a state of mind often considered fashionably romantic; from the German for “world pain.”
ah
Meaning hoi polloi (Greek phrase for “the common people”); Raymie is pronouncing the words as though they were French.
ai
Grand Army of the Republic, a secret organization of Civil War veterans who fought in the Union Army or Navy.
aj
Muskrats.
ak
Meaning “a meditation on death,” from the Greek words thanatos (death) and opsis (a view).
al
Realistic novel (1896) by Harold Frederic about a Methodist minister in a small town in New York State.
am
The Protestant Episcopal Church.
an
A nutria is a large rodent with light brown fur, native to South America.
ao
Belgian group of avant-garde artists and writers.
ap
The International Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternity dedicated to benefiting mankind established in seventeenth-century England.
aq
Order of the Eastern Star, a women’s auxiliary of the Order of Masons.
ar
Norwegian fish dish.
as
Mock serenade to a newly married couple, played on noisy implements such as kettles and tin horns.
at
St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), French priest sanctified for his widespread charity. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, dedicated to charitable work, was established in France in 1833.
au
Hard Norwegian bread.
av
American writer, sociologist, and critic of social institutions (1857-1929); author of The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) and other influential works.
aw
Underground gnomes, in German folklore. ‡Double-breasted version of a frock coat, which is a man’s knee-length coat.
ax
Irish god of love and beauty.
ay
Kennicott is misquoting from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1889 poem “Crossing the Bar” (“And let there be ...”) and William Wordsworth’s 1798 poem “We Are Seven” (“I met a little country boy ...”). tA series of poems (1859-1872) by Tennyson about the Arthurian legend. ‡From the poem “Route Marchin’,” in