5 Mutt and Jeff: Syndicated cartoon strip that began running in 1908, portraying the adventures of two bumbling clowns.
6 Byronic . . . Don Juan . . . Faust: References to icons of rebellion and defiance. The British Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) wrote Don Juan, an epic poem of “spiritual” rebellion; Faust is the defiant magician of German legend who sells his soul for divine knowledge (“the philosophical rebel”), most famously depicted in Goethe’s long dramatic poem of that title.
“THE FOUR FISTS”
1 code of neckties and tallyhos: The code of gentlemen who wear neckties and engage in fox hunts.
2 congé: Sign of dismissal.
TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE
“THE JELLY-BEAN”
1 Mason-Dixon line: The geographical boundary that separates Pennsylvania from West Virginia and Maryland, and thus, symbolically, the North from the South.
2 Rolling the bones: Gambling with dice.
3 Liberty bonds: Government bonds sold to support the war effort.
4 Lady Diane Manners: Famous British actress at the time of World War I and considered by many to be the greatest beauty of her day; Nancy Lamar seems to have confused her with Lady Godiva.
5 flivver: A small, cheap automobile.
6 Joe Miller’s “Slow Train thru Arkansas,” “Lucille” . . . “The Eyes of the World,” by Harold Bell Wright, and an ancient prayer-book of the Church of England: The Jelly-bean’s reading consists of popular books about the West, including what I take to be the work of Joaquin (or “Joe”) Miller (1837-1913), whose poems depict stereotypical views of the American West, and Harold Bell Wright (1872-1944), a California minister turned author who wrote novels set in the Ozarks and the Southwest.
“THE CAMEL’S BACK”
1 Buster Brown collar: A stiff shirt collar usually worn by young boys.
2 new nationalities: A reference to the reconfiguration of national boundaries and the creation of new national entities in the wake of World War I.
3 Kismet: Fate.
“MAY DAY”
1 May Day: The title refers to May 1, the day upon which workers’ marches and socialist celebrations take place worldwide.
2 Delmonico’s: Famous New York City restaurant and nightclub.
3 Prohibition was not yet: Prohibition of the sale of alcohol did not begin until passage of the Twenty-First Amendment in 1919, but as indicated, the sale of liquor to soldiers was made illegal during World War I.
4 J. P. Morgan an’ John D. Rockerfeller: A reference to John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) and John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), both industrialists who helped finance the war effort.
5 Bolsheviki: A reference to the Russian revolution of 1917 in which the proletarian Bolshevik Party seized power and deposed Emperor Nicholas II; a “Bolshevik,” “Bolsheviki,” or “Red” was consequently used derogatorily in the United States to designate workers, labor party members, and political progressives and radicals of all kinds.
6 Shell hole: A coward; one who avoids fighting by diving into a bunker or shell hole.
7 delouser: Process by which lice and other vermin were removed from soldiers.
8 Pump and Slipper: Annual Yale ball for undergraduates.
9 Maxfield Parrish moonlight: Parrish (1870-1966) was a widely known American painter and magazine illustrator whose signature is easily recognized in the lush, colorful, faintly surrealistic qualities of his work.
10 As immortal Christopher: The statue of Christopher Columbus in New York City’s Columbus Circle; the reference to this icon of discovery and freedom is ironic in the context of Fitzgerald’s portrait of a May Day in New York torn by strife and concluding with a suicide.
“PORCELAIN AND PINK”
1Caesar did the Chicago . . . Vestal Virgins . . . Nervii: Parodic references to Roman history in which Julius Caesar is envisioned doing a popular dance while the priestesses of the temple “went wild”; dancing to the “Imperial Roman Jazz,” Caesar subdues the “nervy” Nervii, or Germanic tribes colonized by the Roman Empire.
2 Arrow-collar man . . . D’jer-kiss girl . . . smokeless Sante Fé . . . Pebeco smile . . . Lucile style: References to contemporary advertising slogans such as the modern, “smokeless” Sante Fé Railroad, Arrow shirt collars, and toothpaste.
3 “Evangeline”: Longfellow’s epic poem about the removal of French Acadians from Canada to Louisiana.
4 Walter Scott: Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), Scottish novelist and author of historical romances, such as Ivanhoe (1820), set in the Middle Ages.
5 Cooper: James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), American writer of historical novels, such as The Last of the Mohicans (1826) set in the American frontier.
6 O. Henry: See note 18 above under “Head and Shoulders.”
7 “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”: Julie incorrectly attributes this poem by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) to O. Henry. It was written after Wilde’s imprisonment for sodomy—Julie may be confusing the authors because O. Henry also was imprisoned, though for embezzlement, and began to write stories during his incarceration.
8 Bergson: See note 11 above under “Head and Shoulders.”
9 Man with the Iron Mask: A reference to Alexandre Dumas’ (1802-1870) novel of romance and political intrigue, The Man in the Iron Mask (1850).
10 Agamemnon . . . Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat: The Greek tragic hero Agamemnon was slain in his bath by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover; Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793), a French revolutionary, was slain in his bath by Charlotte Corday, a supporter of the moderate political movement.
11 Shimmies of Normandy: A pun on the “shimmy,” a popular dance, and “shimmies” with a “C,” or “chemise,” a shirt.
12 Belasco midnight: A reference to David Belasco (1853-1931), an American playwright and producer known for his exotic productions.
“THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ”
1 Hades: The name of the Mississippi River town, which is the ancestral home of the Unger family, is also the name for the Greek underworld or land of the dead.
2 St. Midas’ School: Doubtless based on a conflation of Fitzgerald’s boyhood schools, St. Paul Academy and Newman, but with ironic reference to the legend of King Midas who turned everything he touched into gold, including his own daughter.
3 Ritz-Carlton Hotel: The Ritz hotels in Paris, New York, and London (home of the Carlton) are the epitome of luxurious and expensive hostelries.
4 Duvetyn: A particularly luxurious type of velvet.
5 Crœsus: Greek ruler of Lydia known for the massive wealth he accrued in trade.
6 Titania: Queen of the fairies in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
7 Gargantua: The grotesque, gigantic protagonist of François Rabelais’s (1483-1553) massive, carnivalesque novels, Gargantua and Pantegruel, published between 1532 and 1564.
8 Lord Baltimore: A reference to George Calvert, First Baron of Baltimore (1580?-1632), who was given the land grant by Charles I of England in 1632 for what is now Maryland.
9 El Dorados: A reference to the mythical land of gold in South America.
10 General Forrest: Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877), a wealthy businessman and celebrated Civil War general who, after the war, became a leader of the Klu Klux Klan.
11 Pro deo et patria et St. Mida: Parody of a traditional patriotic epithet, which translates into “For God and country and St. Midas.”
12 Empress Eugénie: Consort of Napoleon III and Empress of France (1826-1920) from 1853 to 1870; she was known for her extravagances.
13 Prometheus Enriched: A parodic reference to the Titan from Greek mythology; see note 23 above under “Head and Shoulders.”
“THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON”
1 Methuselah: Biblical figure who lived for over nine hundred years according to Genesis; hence, a very old person.
2 the Wandering Jew: Folkloric figure who is condemned to live and wander until the Second Coming of Christ for having ridiculed h
im on the road to Calvary.
3 “The Boston” . . . the “Maxixe” . . . his “Castle Walk”: Faddish dances of the day.
“TARQUIN OF CHEAPSIDE”
2 “The Faerie Queene” by Edmund Spenser . . . Britimartis: A reference to Spenser’s (1552-1599) epic allegory of the English nation. Britomart in The Faerie Queene is an Amazonian warrior whose name is based on that of the Cretan goddess, Britomartis.
1. Cheapside: A busy market district in Elizabethan London.
3 The Rape of Lucrece: This reference to an early work of Shakespeare identifies him as the rapist in Fitzgerald’s strange tale; Shakespeare’s poem recounts the story of Lucretia who is raped by the son of the Roman king Tarquin and subsequently commits suicide.
“ ‘O RUSSET WITCH!’ ”
1 early novels of H. G. Wells: Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), a prolific author of novels, essays, and fantasies, best known for early novels such as The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, and The War of the Worlds.
2 Great Federal Government: A reference to the constitutional prohibition against the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
3 a telephone girl: A receptionist.
4 floorwalker: The manager of a department in a department store.
5 Sacré nom de Dieu: A mildly blasphemous expression; translated it means “sacred name of God.”
6 “Adam-and-Eve” Bryan ran against William McKinley: A reference to the presidential election of 1900 in which William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee and an avowed anti-Darwinist and antievolutionist, was soundly defeated by the incumbent, William McKinley.
7 landaulet: An open carriage.
8 Bolshevism: See note 5 above under “May Day.”
“THE LEES OF HAPPINESS”
1 Richard Harding Davis . . . Frank Norris: Davis (1864 -1916), an American author and reporter, whose stories of a newsboy-detective gained great popularity. Norris (1870-1902), an American novelist and leading exponent of literary naturalism, which combined realism with a belief in the fateful machinations of the natural world; his most important works include The Octopus (1901), McTeague (1902), and The Pit (1903).
2 whether the Japs had taken Port Arthur: A reference to the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and to the Japanese defeat of the Russians at Port Arthur in Manchuria.
3 Château Thierry: See note 3 above under “Head and Shoulders.”
4 days of “Florodora” and of sextets: See note 8 above under “Head and Shoulders.”
5 Gibson girl: A reference to the fashionable woman of the 1890s who was tightly corseted and wore shirtwaist blouses and bell-shaped skirts.
6 Lillian Russell and Stella Mayhew and Anna Held: Popular actresses and songsters of the Gay Nineties.
“MR. ICKY”
1 Sir Walter Raleigh: Elizabethan courtier and adventurer (c. 1554 -1618) who, among other things, brought tobacco from the New World to Europe and conducted a failed expedition to find El Dorado in South America (see note 9 above under “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz”).
2 Gloria Swanson: Silent film star (1898-1983) who starred in several De-Mille vehicles and who made a comeback as an aging diva in Sunset Boulevard.
3 Nero . . . John Drinkwater: Nero, the decadent emperor who ruled Rome from AD 54 to 68, was said to have fiddled while Rome burned; he, of course, did not say, “With malice toward none, with charity toward all,” nor did Drinkwater (1882-1937), the English poet and author of a historical verse play about Abraham Lincoln, who did say it in his Second Inaugural Address.
4 Jack Dempsey: Famous heavyweight champion (1895-1983) known for his tough and aggressive boxing style.
5 “Conrad” . . . “Two Years Before the Mast,” by Henry James . . . Walter Pater’s version of “Robinson Crusoe”: Fitzgerald deliberately skews authors and works in this parody of authors and citations. Joseph Conrad is an author, not a literary work; Richard Henry Dana is the author of Two Years Before the Mast, not Henry James; the reference to a version of Robinson Crusoe by the late Victorian essayist and aesthetician Walter Pater is nonsensical.
6 McCormick harvesters: McCormick is a well-known maker of agricultural machinery.
7 Oh, for the glands of a Bismarck: Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) was the “Iron Chancellor” of Germany during the reunification in the latter part of the nineteenth century; the reference is to his Prussian strength and toughness.
8 Wordsworth: The lines attributed to the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) parody one of his “Lucy” poems, “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal.”
9 Piccadilly Circus: Not, at all, a “circus” as the chorus implies, but a famous London shopping and entertainment district and crossroads.
FOR MORE FROM F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, LOOK FOR THE
The Beautiful and Damned
Introduction by Kermit Vanderbilt
It is the vivid depiction of life amid the glitter of Jazz Age New York that transforms the now-familiar stories about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s early marriage—as well as Fitzgerald’s impressions of several well-known literary figures—into a captivating work of fiction.
ISBN 978-0-14-118087-8
This Side of Paradise
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Patrick O’Donnell
The story of Amory Blaine’s adolescence and undergraduate days at Princeton, This Side of Paradise captures the essence of an American generation struggling to define itself in the aftermath of World War I and the destruction of “the old order.”
ISBN 978-0-14-018976-6
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories (Penguin Classics) Page 52