The Facts on File Dictionary of Allusions - Green Valley High School

a view of that dark side of him which represents
his life as open to so many causes of trouble—
when I consider, brother Toby, how oft we eat the
bread of affl iction, and that we are born to it, as to
the portion of our inheritance—I was born to
nothing, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting my
father—but my commission” (Laurence Sterne,
Tristram Shandy, 1759–67).
break a leg! Good luck! <strong>The</strong> allusion is to the
world of the theater, in which the phrase is a traditional
expression of good luck to someone about
to go on stage. Various origins for the expression
have been suggested. <strong>The</strong>se include the general
notion that wishing a person well simply invites
the fates to interfere, therefore wishing a person
ill should make it less likely that anything bad will
happen. <strong>The</strong> expression may, on the other hand,
have its origins in the Elizabethan theater, specifi -
cally in the kneeling of actors to pick up coins
tossed onto the stage by an appreciative audience
or in the bending of the leg when taking repeated
bows in response to enthusiastic applause. A less
plausible theory links the saying to the assassination
of abraham lincoln in his box at Ford’s
<strong>The</strong>ater in Washington, D.C., in 1865 and the fact
that as he leapt to the stage his assassin, actor John
Wilkes Booth, broke his leg (see also one’s name is
mud). Equally colorful is the link suggested with
the story of En glish actor Samuel Foote (1720–77)
who was granted a valuable royal patent to perform
spoken drama at the Haymarket <strong>The</strong>atre in
London as compensation for breaking a leg (which
then had to be amputated) in the course of boisterous
horse play with the duke of York: the patent
enabled Foote to make his fortune, giving him
cause to be grateful for what might otherwise have
been a disastrous setback. “Charles wanted to say
something to help, but all he could think of was
bricks without straw
‘Break a leg’ ” (Simon Brett, Murder Unprompted,
1984).
break Priscian’s head (prishbnz) To break the
rules of grammar. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to Priscianus
Caesariensis, a Roman grammarian of the sixth
century a.d. “Some free from rhyme or reason,
rule or check, / Break Priscian’s head and Pegasus’s
neck” (Alexander Pope, <strong>The</strong> Dunciad, 1728).
breath of life Life or something considered as
essential as life itself. According to the book of
Genesis, God brought Adam to life literally by
breathing life into him: “And the LORD God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became
a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). “Ah, but she won’t
abandon you. Poetry and art are the breath of life
to her. It is poetry you write, Mr. Winsett?” (Edith
Wharton, <strong>The</strong> Age of Innocence, 1920).
Brechtian (brekteebn) Of or relating to the plays
of German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–
1956). Through such plays as Mother Courage and
Her Children (1939) and <strong>The</strong> Caucasian Chalk Circle
(1944), Brecht became well known for his didactic
approach to the theater and for his Marxist ideas,
as well as for his espousal of techniques designed to
restrict the emotional response of an audience at
the expense of the underlying message. “Modernist
cinema is cast in a Brechtian mould of distantiation
and bears formalist characteristics” (Scott Lash,
Sociology of Postmodernism, 1990).
bricks without straw Work that is expected to be
done under diffi cult conditions or without the necessary
tools or materials. <strong>The</strong> phrase refers to the
biblical incident in which Pharaoh refused to provide
the Hebrews with the straw they needed to
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