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Mary Bold as
Mentor
Eleanor is reflecting on the fact that her sister-in-law had given her
good advice regarding the Stanhopes (i.e., that she should stay away from
them), which she had wrongly ignored. Mentor is a character from Homer's
Odyssey who gives Odysseus' son Telemachus advice regarding the
suitors who desire to marry his mother. It is from this character that we
get the English word "mentor" to refer to an advisor. [JC] |
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The
last of the Neros
Julia was ever a favourite name with the ladies of that family
The interview between Mr. Thorne and the last of the Neros
Madeline, in an attempt to aggrandize herself and her nuptial misfortune,
immensely plays up her alleged connection to the emperors of ancient Rome
via her Italian husband. Her husband's last name is Neroni, a name
similar to that of Nero, the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty,
which produced the most famous rulers of Rome. Nero was indeed the last
of his line, as he kicked his pregnant wife to death before she could bear
him a child, making it quite improbable that Madeline's daughter or
husband bear any relation, however diluted, to that ancient family, as she
frequently claims and as she implies by naming her daughter "Julia", a
name appearing quite frequently throughout the Julio-Claudian genealogy.
OCD [JM] |
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Infernal gods
The
gods of the world below, and thus hell. Slope has just been humiliated by
Madeline Stanhope, with whom he was previously infatuated. The experience
changes her in his eyes from a heavenly angel to a demonic being. It
seems likely that Trollope makes reference more to a classical idea than
to a Christian one in light of Madeline's frequent self-characterisations
as both unreligious and almost a relic of pagan imperial Rome.
OED [JM] |