who says advanced degrees can't be fun?

[truepenny]

Some days I do love this dissertation. It lets me write phrases like D'Amville takes Castabella to the cemetery to proposition her, which is, absolutely literally, part of the action of the fourth act of Tourneur's Atheist's Tragedy.

It's all about picking the right primary sources.

Comments

[libskrat]

Castabella? Gad, what a terrible name.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, the other women in the play are Levidulcia, Cataplasma, and Soquette, so all things considered, Castabella got off pretty lightly.

And if it's any consolation, she deserves it.

Cataplasma?

[vass]

*Soquette*?!

...

Wait.

You know, I think I'd still prefer any of those names to most of those in the Utah Baby Namer.

Re: Cataplasma?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes, on the whole, I think you're right.

[libskrat]

I guess modern fantasists didn't invent grotesquerie in nomenclature.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh, goodness no. Some of the characters in The Revengers Tragedy are named Vindice, Lussurioso, Ambitioso, and Supervacuo (god I love that play!). The heroine of The Spanish Tragedy is named Bel-imperia. The names in prose romances are even worse.

And stage Puritans got relentlessly mocked for their names, partly because Puritans had weird naming customs, and partly because they were middle-class (or lower) men putting on airs. Tourneur's Puritan, Languebeau Snuffe, aside from being howlingly hypocritical, is also revealed in the end to be merely a candle-maker, a kind of precursor of Tartuffe. Jonson's Puritan names are the best, though: Zeal-of-the-Land Busy in Bartholmew Fair and Tribulation Wholesome in The Alchemist.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

You'll have sig lines for life.