A Quote From ...
Hidden Quotations
An intentional quotation from a writer or speaker is often prefaced with the words "as X says", but we often quote without realizing it. Many familiar phrases and sayings originate with a major literary figure, even if the user of the words is unaware of the link.
Sometimes the phrase has itself undergone alteration. A 1990s reference to "corporate hopes for fresh fields and pastures new" derives ultimately from the 17th century and the conclusion of Milton's poem Lycidas, "Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new." It was Milton who also gave us a succinct summary to apply to unsuccessful attempts to clarify a situation, "confusion worse confounded"(Paradise Lost). For Him Magazine, September 1995, referred to "distortion, lily-gilding and downright porkies;" the expression "to gild the lily" comes from a conflation of Shakespeare's lines in King John, "to gild refinéd gold, to paint the lily...Is wasteful and ridiculous excess."
Some phrases link back to more than one literary name. An article in Punch in 1986 noted wrily that "There is a potent charm in the role of the ministering angel." This image of a kind-hearted (female) nurse and comforter echoes first Shakespeare's Hamlet, in Laertes' lament for the dead Ophelia, "a ministering angel shall my sister be", and then Walter Scott's lines in Marmion, "When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!The phrase " "All sweetness and light" is now often used ironically (as in, "We're realistic that shopping isn't all sweetness and light"–Which?,1991), but it derives ultimately from Swift's reference, in The Battle of the Books (1704), to "the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light." The phrase was taken up and reinforced by Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy (1869), "The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light."
We may not always be aware when our "winged words" (Homer) and "purple patches" (Horace) are made up of "a bunch of other men's flowers" (Montaigne).
Elizabeth Knowles
13/02/2002
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