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

Thalatta! (thblata) A cry of joy or triumph.
Greek soldiers retreating from their Persian enemies
were reputed to have exclaimed, “Thalatta!
Thalatta!” (meaning “the sea! the sea!”) on catching
sight of the waters of the Black Sea. In modern
usage the soldiers’ cry is sometimes rendered as
“Thalassa! Thalassa!” Like the Greeks at the sight of
their deliverance, he felt like shouting out “Thalatta!
Thalatta!” at this fi rst glimpse of his rescuers.
Thalia (thblib) A source of poetical or comic
inspiration. Thalia was one of the muses of Greek
mythology, identifi ed as the muse of comedy and
pastoral poetry. <strong>The</strong> word comes from the Greek
thaleia (meaning “blooming”). Thalia herself would
appear to have sat at his elbow, guiding his pen as a
young man, but in his latter years she seems to have
deserted him for other rivals. See also three graces.
Thanatos (thanbtos) <strong>The</strong> personifi cation of
death. According to Greek mythology Thanatos
was the son of Nyx, the goddess of night, and was
identifi ed as the god of death. In the fi rst half of
the 20th century Sigmund Freud selected Thanatos
as a name for the universal death instinct. This urge
for self- destruction, the magnetic pull of Thanatos, is
hard for some people to resist at such moments.
that’s all, folks! This is the end, there is no more.
This was the famous slogan scrawled across the
screen at the end of the Warner Brothers Merry
Melodies cartoons, from 1930. Mel Blanc (1908–
89), who provided the voices of many of the most
pop u lar characters in the cartoons, memorably
chose “That’s all, folks!” for his epitaph. That’s all,
folks! <strong>The</strong> bar’s closed.
that’s the way it is, and See and that’s the way
it is.
<strong>The</strong>lma and Louise
theater of the absurd A form of drama or other
entertainment that seeks to emphasize the futility
and meaningless of existence, often using
bizarre or unorthodox methods. <strong>The</strong> reference
is to an avant- garde movement in world drama
that gathered pace after World War II, championed
by such playwrights as Samuel Beckett,
Jean Genet, and Edward Albee. <strong>The</strong> campaigning
efforts of the extreme right had slipped into the realms
of the theater of the absurd. See also waiting for
godot.
their fi nest hour A moment of glory. <strong>The</strong>
phrase was famously delivered by British prime
minister Winston Churchill (1874–1965) in a
speech broadcast on June 18, 1940, in which he
sought to bolster re sis tance to the threat of a
possible Nazi invasion of the United Kingdom:
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties,
and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire
and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years,
men will still say, ‘This was their fi nest hour.’ ”
Surveying the wreckage of their home after the party,
the boys were forced to admit this had not been their
fi nest hour.
theirs not to reason why See ours not to reason
why.
<strong>The</strong>lma and Louise Archetypes of two women
who seek to assert their equality in a repressively
male world. <strong>The</strong> 1991 movie <strong>The</strong>lma and Louise
starred Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon as two
friends who behave in an increasingly lawless
fashion after shooting a male attacker and being
forced to go on the run from the police. <strong>The</strong> characters
became icons of feminist solidarity and
remain symbols of escape from a male- dominated
culture. <strong>The</strong> couple burst into the party like <strong>The</strong>lma
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