Arcadia Study Guide - Glossary

Aeschylus: (525-426 BC) Greek

playwright of The Persians, The Orestia.
Admiral: The senior officer of the British
Navy.
a prize essay of the scientific Academy
in Paris: Reference to Fouriers Heat
Equation. Jean Baptiste Joseph (Baron)
Fourier French Geometrician and
physicist (1768-1830). The equation is
described and commented upon in
general terms by both Septimus and
Thomasina in the text.
Anchorite: A person who retires to a
solitary place for religious contemplation.
Arcadia: A region of Greece idealized by
the Roman poet Virgil as a serene garden
paradise in which man lived in natural
harmony with the elements and his fellow
creatures. An Eden, if you will.
Archimedes: (287-212 BC) Greek
mathematician. Known for the
Archimedian screw a device for raising
water in the shape of a corkscrew.
Baron Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibnitz:
German philosopher and mathematician
(1646-1716).
Beau Brummel: George Bryan Brummel
(1778-1840). Famous English society
leader and beau, i.e., a dandy.
Brideshead Revisited: A novel by Evelyn
Waugh about the pre World War I
aristocracy.
Brighton and Hove Argus: Daily
newspaper.

Brockett Hall: Caroline Lambs home.

Butts and Beaters: Beaters, of course,
are individuals who walk through a field
beating the brush to flush out game.
Presumably butts are what one beats
with.
Cabalistic: A system of occult or
theosophist interpretations of scripture
originated by Jewish rabbis and passed
into Christian tradition in the Middle
Ages.
Capability Brown: Lancelot Capability
Brown (1716-1783). English landscape
architect who assured potential patrons
of the capabilities of their grounds.
Advocate of a natural style of
asymmetrical arrangement of sinuous
curves and informal groupings.
Caro, Carnis: translated as Flesh, Flesh
(feminine).
Caroline Lamb:
The Castle of Otranto: An early Gothic
novel by Horace Walpole.
Ce soir, il faut quon parle francais, je
te demande.: Translated This evening,
we must speak French, I pay you
Chatsworth: The country home of the
Duke of Devonshire located four miles
east of Blakewell in Derbyshire.
Landscaped by Capability Brown.
King Charles II: King of England 16601685 (Born 1630). Restored to the throne
in 1660 after 11 years in exile following

the execution of his father, Charles I

(Charles Stuart) in 1649 by Oliver
Cromwell.
Childe Harold: Childe Harolds
Pilgrimage, Byrons most famous poem.
The first part published in 1811, begun
1809 and added to intermittently until
1817. Enormously successful. Somewhat
autobiographical piece referring to his
travel about Europe. Established Byrons
fame throughout Europe. Harold was seen
as the embodiment Byrons fame
throughout Europe. Harold was seen as
the embodiment of the romantic ideal, a
nobleman in self-exile, a man who has all
the advantages and has experienced life
widely, but is weary of empty pleasures
and seeks solace in travel.
Christies: The London auction house.
Claude Lorraine: (1600-1682) French
landscape painter. In the last ten years of
his life painted six works showing scenes
from the adventures of Aeneas, all
scrupulously following the text of Virgils
epic poem, The Aeneid.
Commode: A chamber pot enclosed in a
chair or a chest of drawers.
Cornhill Magazine: London, J. Murray.
Published from 1860-1975. A literary
magazine that published serialized stories
and short stories.
Curlew: a large bird long legs and a long
curved bill.
Devonshire House: The London
residence of the Duke of Devonshire, a
mansion built in the 18th century by
William Kent. Located at the corner of
Piccadilly and Berkeley Street, across
from Green Park.

DNB: Dictionary of National Biography.

The Duchess: Elizabeth Foster, 5th
Duchess of Devonshire(1759-1824), she
had openly been mistress of the 5th Duke
of Devonshire while at the same time
being the dearest friend of the Dukes
wife Georgiana. Both women bore the
man children, which were raised in one
household. After the death of his first wife
in 1806, the Duke married Elizabeth in
1809.
Eclogue
Edinburgh: Scottish Periodical
Edmund Spencer: (1522-1599) Poet, and
author of The Fairy Queen.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers:
Byrons satirical verse commentary on his
contemporaries.
Et in Arcadia ego: Literal Latin
translation, And I am in Arcadia. The
phrase is the title of a painting by
Nicholas Poussin to which Lady Croom
refers. The phrase originally comes from
the Latin poet Virgil. As translated by
Septimus, Even in Arcadia, there am I
the suggestion by context being that even
in an earthly paradise (such as Arcadia or
Sidley Park) death is present. The phrase
Et in Arcadia ego is the title of a painting
by Nicholas Poussin to which Lady Croom
refers. The phrase originally comes from
the Latin port Virgil. The painting
represents a group of sheperds in Arcadia
discovering a tomb on which the
inscription Et in Arcadia ego is carved.
Lady Croom properly quotes Poussin
(and Virgil) but widely misinterpreting
the meaning.

Etonian: One who attended Eton, a

Prestigious English public school.

Henry Fuseli: (1742-1825) Johann

Heinrich Fuseli, Swiss painter in England.

Euripides: (484-406 BC) Greek

Playwright of Medea, Hippolytus, The
Bacchae.

Sir Horace Walpole: Earl of Oxford,

author of The Castle of Otranto (17171797).

Fractals: geometric shapes that represent

the mathematical expression of complex
natural phenomena. Discovered in the
1970s by

Humphrey Repton: Landscape Architect

(1752-1818) Presented patrons with cut
and fold watercolors of what their
grounds might look like.

Florence Nightingale: (1820-1910)

English philanthropist and nurse.

The Idyll by Theocritus

Gallic Wars: The wars through which the

Romans captured Gaul, roughly the area
of contemporary France. Recounted in
Caesars Comentaries a standard
beginning Latin text. (Omnia Gallia in tres
partes divisa est: All Gaul is divided into
three parts. Or something like that.)
George Spencer: 5th Duke of
Marlborough (1776-1840), amateur
dabbler in the arts, noted for his musical
compositions.
Guinea: An English gold coin worth 21
shillings. Discontinued in 1813.
Ha-Ha: An unseen trench or ditch. A
sunken fence.
Harrow: Prestigious public school.
Headlong Hall: published in 1815.
Thomas Love Peacocks first novel. A
farce. It contains a satire of an actual
controversy about landscape gardening
which had erupted in 1810 between the
famous landscape gardeners of the day to
the quality of Capability Browns style of
gardens.

Improved Newcomen Steam Pump:

invented by Thomas Newcomen (16631729). The steam pump presumably used
to pump water from one place to another.
Iterated Algorithm:
Sir James Augustus Henry Murray:
(1837-1915) Scottish philologist and
lexicographer, editor of the Oxford English
Dictionary.
Sir Joseph Banks: English naturalist
(1743-1820).
Just William Books: a series of books
aimed at the adolescent audience. The
American equivalent to Nancy Drew or
The Hardy Boys.
Kew: A Royal residence located at
Richmond upon Thames. The Royal
Botanic Gardens were created by George
III in 1772 by the combination of the Kew
and Richmond Lodge Gardens which were
landscaped by Capability Brown. Brown
designed the famous Rhododendron Dell,
the lake and its setting of trees and the
landscape along by the river.
Lacte et Carne Vivunt: Translate they
live on milk and meat.

The Levant: The Middle East

Linnean Society: Presumably historical.
Named after the Swedish Naturalist Karl
Von Linne (1707-1778) who founded the
system of classifying plant life used by
botanists.
Lord Holland: Lady Holland is
mentioned in some sources as a
prominent society hostes of the day, much
interested in the arts, literature, and
Byron. Lord Holland is her husband. Lord
Holland (Henry Richard (Baron) 17731840). Holland House (located two miles
from Marble Arch on the main road
running out of London towards the west
what is now Holland Park) was a major
salon of the time famous for bringing
the powerful and the best together for
their mutual edification and enjoyment. It
was meritocratic, inegalitarian and held
mediocrity in abhorrence. Among those
who dined there were the Prince Regent,
Sheridan, Wilberforce, Canning, William
Lamb, Byron, Thomas Moore,
Lord Jeffrey: Scottish Lawyer and
Essayist (1773-1850) Editor of the
Edinburgh Review, the most influential
magazine of the period. It was devoted to
the interests of the Whig party.
Lord Little: A fictional charater.
The Mysteries of Udolpho: a Two-volume
romance novel written by Ann Ward
Radcliffe (1764-1823). Although the
action is set in 1584, the heroine, Emily
St. Aubert, is very much like a young
English lady of the early 19th Century. A
hugely popular work of fiction when it
was published in 1808.

Newstead Abbey: Lord Byrons ancestral

home.
Newtonian: Follower of Sir Isaac Newton
(1642-1727), proponent of a theory of
gravitational attraction and a theory of
the universe resulting therefrom.
Nicholas Poussin: French painter (15941665).
Obelisk: An upright, four sided pillar,
gradually tepering and resulting in a
pyramid.
Opera Court, Pall Mall: A dignified street
in London, one block from St. James
Square, named after the game of
pallemaille, a cross between croquet and
golf, which was played here in the early
17th century. For more than 150 years,
Pall Mall has been the heart of Londons
club land. Here exclusive gentlemens
clubs were formed to provide members
with a refuge from their womenfolk.
Onan: The Biblical character who spilled
his seed.
Ovid: Roman poet. Metamorphoses (BC
43-AD 17).
Parterre: An ornamental and diversified
grouping of flowerbeds.
Pastoral poetry
Piccadilly Recreation: Subsequently
defined as a thrice weekly periodical.
Pierre de Fermat: French Mathematician
1601-1665. Famous for developing two
important mathematical theorems.
Ptolemy: The dynastic line of Egyptian
rulers, of whom Cleopatra was the last

Q.E.D.: Quod Errat Demonstrandum,

Translated thus it was demonstrated.
Queen Elizabeth: Elizabeth I, Queen of
England 1558-1603 (born 1533).
Daughter of Henry VIII. Known as The
Virgin Queen.

Samuel Rogers: (1763-1855) English

poet (The Pleasure of Memory).
Scape:
Septimus: Latin for seventh; Signifying
that Septimus is the seventh child in his
family.

Queen Dido: Mythological Carthaginian

Queen whose name represents a
stereotype of both feminine
capriciousness and obsessive passion.
Henry Purcell wrote a famous opera, Dido
and Aeneas.

Sophocles: (496-405 BC) Greek

Playwright of The Odeipus Cycle.

Queer my pitch:

Theodolite: An instrument for measuring

horizontal and vertical angles, employing
a small telescope.

Regency: A period in which a Regent

rules in place of a King or Queen unable
by reason of health or age to rule.
Specifically, the period 1811-1820 during
which George, the Prince of Wales, ruled
for his father, George III.
RN: Royal Navy
Robert Southey: English author and poet
(1774-1843). Poet Laureate 1813-1843.
Friend of Wordsworth and Shelley. Butt of
Byrons ridicule in English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers.
Salvator Rosa: Italian painter and poet
(1615-1675).
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: English
metaphysician and poet (1772-1834)
Kubla Khan, The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner. Opium addict. Originator, with
Southey, of a scheme called
Pantisocracy a utopia to be built on
the banks of the Susquehanna River.
Never realized.

Snipe: a bird related to the woodcock.

Sussex University

Thomas Hobbes: (1588-1679) English

philosopher and author of Leviathan.
Thomas Love Peacock: English poet and
novelist. (1785-1866) Author of Headlong
Hall.
Thomas Moore: (1779-1852) Irish poet,
Lalla Rookh and Irish Melodies. Published
letters and journals of Lord Byron in
1830.
topped and tailed: British phrase used
in publishing to refer to the cropping of
the top and bottom of a manuscript.
Trainers and Flatties: Short for cross
trainers, or sneakers. Slang for a flat pair
of shoes.
Trinity College: Also known as
Cambridge University, Byrons alma
mater.
Virgil: Roman poet (70-19 B.C.)

Walter Scott: Later Sir Walter Scott

(1771-1832), Scottish author of Ivanhoe,
also a poet.
William Makepeace Thackery: English
Novelist (1811-1863), author of Vanity
Fair.
William Wordsworth: English poet
(1770-1850). Poet Laureate 1843-1850.
Lake poet. Lyrical Ballads (published
1798) established his reputation.