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

Dante’s Inferno
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proportion of things, and in later days it is preferable
to have fewer sonnets and more conversation”
(George Eliot, Middlemarch, 1871–72).
Dante’s Inferno (dantayz, dontayz) A place of
terrifying heat, violence, or demonic confusion.
<strong>The</strong> Italian writer Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)
has been celebrated for generations for his vivid
depiction of hell in Inferno, the fi rst part of his epic
poem La Divina Commedia (<strong>The</strong> Divine Comedy;
1307–21). His descriptions of the infernal regions
to which condemned souls are doomed had a profound
effect upon the medieval imagination and
remain infl uential today, as much for their poetical
qualities as for their theological content. To be cast
into Dante’s Inferno is to be thrown, actually or
meta phor ical ly, into a seething cauldron of fi re or
confusion and horror. Anything that is reminiscent
of Dante’s vivid imaginings may be similarly
dubbed Dantean or Dantesque. As he opened the
door to the blast furnace it was like stepping into Dante’s
Inferno.
Dan to Beersheba, from (dan, beersheebb) Everywhere;
from one end of a kingdom to the other.
<strong>The</strong> biblical town of Dan was located in the north
of Canaan and marked the northern limit of
ancient Israel, while Beersheba was situated on the
southern limit of the kingdom. <strong>The</strong> phrase appears
in Judges 20:1, in which the Israelites are described
as being “gathered together as one man, from Dan
even to Beer- sheba.” News of his downfall spread
quickly, and soon everyone from Dan to Beersheba knew
that his star had been eclipsed.
Danvers, Mrs. See mrs. danvers.
Daphne (dafnee) <strong>The</strong> archetype of a woman
who seeks to defend her chastity. Daphne was a
nymph who attracted the amorous attentions of
the god Apollo. He pursued her until she called
on the other gods to help her and was transformed
by them into a laurel, or bay, tree. Apollo swore
that from thenceforth he would wear bay leaves in
tribute to her. “A spasm passed through Grace. A
Daphnean instinct, exceptionally strong in her as
a girl, had been revived by her widowed seclusion”
(Thomas Hardy, <strong>The</strong> Woodlanders, 1887).
Daphnis and Chloe (dafnis, kloee) An archetypal
pair of young lovers. A celebrated ancient Greek
pastoral romance relates how Daphnis and Chloe
fell in love and eventually married. <strong>The</strong>ir story was
subsequently retold in Allan Ramsay’s Gentle Shepherd
(1725) and Jacques- Henri Bernardin de Saint-
Pierre’s Paul et Virginie (1787), as well as the ballet
Daphnis et Chloe (1912), with music by Maurice
Ravel and choreography by Michel Fokine. A couple
sauntered among the trees and fl owers, for all the
world like a latter- day Daphnis and Chloe. See also
chloe.
Darby and Joan Archetype of a comfortable,
devoted, el der ly married couple. <strong>The</strong>y fi rst
appeared as characters in a ballad by Henry
Woodfall, published in the Gentleman’s Magazine
in 1735: “Old Darby, with Joan by his side, /
You’ve often regarded with wonder: / He’s dropsical,
she is sore- eyed, / Yet they’re never happy
asunder.” <strong>The</strong> characters may have been based on
real people, John Darby being the man under
whom Henry Woodfall served an apprenticeship,
although another tradition identifi es them as a
Yorkshire couple. “He found her at home, and
with her was her husband. ‘Here is a Darby and
Joan meeting, is it not?’ she said, getting up to
welcome him” (Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn,
1869).