Notes:Anne of the Island/Cultural references and allusions

"All precious things discovered late To those that seek them issue forth, For Love in sequel works with Fate, And draws the veil from hidden worth."

- Anne of the Island – Epigraph

This is from "The Day-Dream" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It opens the part called "The Arrival".

"Harvest is ended and summer is gone."

Paraphrased from Jeremiah 8:20.

"You'll always keep a corner for me, won't you, Di darling? Not the spare room, of course -- old maids can't aspire to spare rooms, and I shall be as 'umble as Uriah Heep, and quite content with a little over-the-porch or off-the-parlour cubby hole."

This is a reference to David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. In it, there is a character called Uriah Heep who is constantly claiming to be humble (he pronounces it "'umble").

"Shoes and ships and sealing wax And cabbages and kings,"

This is from "The Walrus and the Carpenter", stanza 11, by Lewis Carroll. "The Walrus and the Carpenter" is one of the poems in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

"In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of 'faery lands forlorn' ..."

This is from stanza seven of "Ode to a Nightingale", by John Keats.

"And she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

From 2 Corinthians 4:18.

"The fatal apple of Eden couldn't have had a rarer flavour ..."

Anne is referencing the old creation story in the book of Genesis, where Adam and Eve are punished for eating the fruit (sometimes assumed to be an apple, though it is never specifically stated) that grows on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. This introduces sin into the world, and is what triggers God to banish Adam and Eve from the Garden. And since there is now sin in the world, there is also death, which may be why Anne referred to the apple as "fatal".

"Those apples have been as manna to a hungry soul."

Anne is possibly referring to the period of time in the Old Testament when the Israelites ate the food God provided for them for forty years while they wandered in the desert. The food that came in the morning was called manna, and the food that came in the evening was quail. Manna was thin flakes of bread, and literally came down from the skies. Both manna and quail fulfilled every need the Israelites had for food.

"Dora, like the immortal and most prudent Charlotte, who 'went on cutting bread and butter' when her frenzied lover's body had been carried past on a shutter, was one of those fortunate creatures who are seldom disturbed by anything."

This is a reference to "The Sorrows of Werther", by William Makepeace Thackeray.

"I feel like Byron's 'Childe Harold' – only it isn't really my 'native shore' that I'm watching."

This is a reference to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, by George Gordon, Lord Byron. The "native shore" quote comes from Canto the First, part XIII.

"And on Inkerman yet the wild bramble is gory, And those bleak heights henceforth shall be famous in story."

These lines which Anne quotes are from Lucile by Owen Meredith (Canto VI, Part VII).

"... she saw the Kingsport Harbour of nearly a century agone. Out of the mist came slowly a great frigate, brilliant with 'the meteor flag of England'."

The line is from "Ye Mariners of England: A Naval Old Ode" by Thomas Campbell.

"And so in mountain solitudes o'ertaken As by some spell divine, Their cares drop from them like the needles shaken From out the gusty pine."

This is the seventh stanza of the poem "Dickens in Camp", by Bret Harte.

"Let's go home around by Spofford Avenue. We can see all 'the handsome houses where the wealthy nobles dwell'."

This is from a poem called "The Lord of Burleigh", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

"I ain't scared now to say "if I should die before I wake""

This quote is a reference to the popular eighteenth-century children's prayer, "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep". Davy says this in reply to Anne after promising not to swear again.

"To sleep Jane went easily and speedily; but though very unlike Macbeth in most respects, she had certainly contrived to murder sleep for Anne"

This quote is a reference to Act II, Scene II of William Shakespeare's Macbeth where Macbeth murders Duncan in his bed chamber. Jane had just proposed to Anne on behalf of her brother and was somewhat resentful toward the rejection.

"Stop it Pris. "The best is yet to be." Like the old Roman, we'll find a house or build one."

This quote is a reference to the poem "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning.

"'I feel as if something mysterious were going to happen right away - "by the pricking of my thumbs,"' said Anne, as they went up the slope."

This quote is from line 44 of Act IV, Scene I of Macbeth by William Shakespeare: "By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something wicked this way comes".

"Their names are Gog and Magog. Gog looks to the right and Magog to the left."

The names Gog and Magog, the names of Miss Patty's two ornamental china dogs, are taken from Revelation 20:8.

"Girls, dear, I'm tired to death. I feel like the man without a country - or was it without a shadow?"

In this quote Philippa is alluding to Edward Everett Hale's short story, "The Man Without a Country" (1863).

"Now you -' 'Toil not, neither do I spin,' finished Philippa."

Here Philippa is quoting Matthew 6:28: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin".

"The Way of Transgressors"

"The Way of Transgressors", the title of chapter 13, is a reference to Proverbs 13:15.

"'I had so,' cried Davy, but in the voice of one who doth protest too much"

This quote is a reference to Act III, Scene II of Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

"So spake Anne loftily, little dreaming of the valley of humiliation awaiting her"

This quote is a reference to The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678).

"'Oh; Gilbert, not you,' implored Anne, in an et tu, Brute tone."

This quote is a reference to the apparent last words spoken by Caesar as he is stabbed to death and recognizes Brutus among the assassins; 'et tu, Brute' was popularized in William Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar. Here Gilbert congratulates Anne on winning the Rollings Reliable prize, much to Anne's dismay over the whole affair.

"What, silent still and silent all? Oh, no, the voices of the dead Sound like the distant torrent's fall,"

This is from "The Isles of Greece", which is a poem featured in Canto the Third of Don Juan, by George Gordon, Lord Byron. It is the beginning of the eighth stanza.

"But, like Kipling's cat, he 'walked by himself'."

This quote is a reference to Rudyard Kipling's short story, "The Cat That Walked by Himself", which appears in the collection of Just So Stories (1902).

"He's a beautiful cat - this is, his disposition is beautiful. She called him Joseph because his coat is of many colours."

This quote is a reference to the story of Joseph from the Book of Genesis.

"[Anne] found Avonlea in the grip of such an early, cold, and stormy winter as even the 'oldest inhabitant' could not recall."

This quote is a likely reference to Mark Twain's speech, "The Weather", with a toast to "The Oldest Inhabitant - The Weather of New England".

"What are you reading?" "Pickwick" "That's a book that always makes me hungry,' said Phil. 'There's so much good eating in it. The characters seem always to be revelling on ham and eggs and milk punch. I generally go on a cupboard rummage after reading Pickwick.The mere thought reminds me that I'm starving."

Here Anne and Phil are referring to Charles Dickens' first novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836), more commonly known as The Pickwick Papers.

"[Charlotta] wore her hair now in an enormous pompadour and had discarded the blue ribbon bows of auld lang syne"

This quote is a reference to Robert Burns' poem, "Auld Lang Syne", which popularized the traditional Scots folk song.

""Nobody axed me, sir, she said" - at least, nobody but that horrid little Dan Ranger"

Here Anne references the traditional English nursery rhyme, "Where Are You Going, My Pretty Maid?", while explaining to Aunt Jamesina why she avoided the college football match.

"Silly Phil! You know quite well that Jonas loves you." "But - he won't tell me so. And I can't make him. He looks it, I'll admit. But speak-to-me-only-with-thine-eyes isn't a really reliable reason for embroidering doilies and hem-stitching table-cloths."

This quote is a reference to Ben Jonson's poem, "To Celia".

""The woods were God's first temples," quoted Anne softly."

Here Anne quotes William Cullen Bryant's poem, "A Forest Hymn".

"Were not half the Redmond girls wildly envious? And what a charming sonnet he had sent her, with a box of violets, on her birthday! Anne knew every word of it by heart. It was very good stuff of its kind, too. Not exactly up to the level of Keats or Shakespeare - even Anne was not so deeply in love to think that. But it was very tolerable magazine verse. And it was addressed to her - not to Laura or Beatrice or the Maid of Athens, but to her, Anne Shirley."

This quote alludes to famous instances of romantic correspondence and the history of the sonnet form, which is commonly used to express love. In the first instance, the Romantic poet, John Keats (b. 1795), famously wrote a number of devoted love letters and sonnets to his fiancée, Fanny Brawne, before his untimely death in 1821. In the second instance, William Shakespeare composed a collection of 154 sonnets, the first 126 to a young man, and the last 28 to a woman. As for the women alluded to, “Laura” is a reference to the mysterious muse to whom the Italian poet Petrarch addressed over 300 sonnets with his undying love, most of which appear in The Canzoniere; “Beatrice” is a Shakespearean character and the subject of Benedick’s sonnet, which he composes in Act V Scene II of the romantic-comedy, Much Ado About Nothing; and the “Maid of Athens” is the title of a love poem written by George Gordon, Lord Byron to the young Teresa Makri while he resided in Greece.

"Gilbert would never have dreamed of writing a sonnet to her eyebrows. But then, Gilbert could see a joke."

This quote is an allusion to Jacques' "All the world's a stage" speech from Shakespeare's As You Like It; 'And then the lover, / Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad, / Made to his mistress' eyebrow'.

"So wags the world away," quoted Gilbert practically and a trifle absently."

This quote is a reference to Ellen Mackay Hutchinson's poem, "So Wags the World Away".

"Oh, why must a minister's wife be supposed to utter only prunes and prisms?"

Here Phil is quoting Mrs General, the class-conscious governess from Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit, who believes that the phrase "prunes and prisms" will give an attractive and ladylike shape to the mouth.

"A pouring rainy night like this, coming after a hard day's grind, would squelch anyone but a Mark Tapley."

In this quote, Anne is referring to the ever cheerful character, Mark Tapley, from Charles Dickens' novel, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1844).

"The roof leaked and the rain came pattering down on my bed. There was no poetry in that. I had get up in the "mirk midnight" and chivvy round to pull the bedstead out of the drip"

In this quote, Stella references Robert Burns' 1793 poem, "Lord Gregory".

"Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!""

This quote is a reference to John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, "Maud Muller".

"Potent, wise, and reverend Seniors," quoted Phil."

Phil adapts the line "Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors," from William Shakespeare's Othello as she reflects on her time at Redmond.

"I've tried the world - it wears no more The colouring of romance it wore,"

Here Anne quotes two lines from William Cullen Bryant's poem, "The Rivulet".

"Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning."

Anne quotes this line from Psalms 30:5 after learning that Gilbert will recover from his illness.

"I've come to ask you to go for one of our old-time rambles through September woods and "over hills where spices grow", this afternoon," said Gilbert"

This quote is a reference to Isaac Watts' hymn, "Who is This Fair One in Distress?".

"But I'll have to ask you to wait a long time, Anne," said Gilbert sadly. "It will be a three years before I finish my medical course. And even then there will be no diamond sunbursts and marble halls." Anne laughed. "I don't want sunbursts and marble halls. I just want YOU. You see I'm quite as shameless as Phil about it. Sunbursts and marble halls may be all very well, but there is more 'scope for the imagination' without them."

Here a deliberate reference is made by Montgomery to the second chapter of Anne of Green Gables ("Matthew Cuthbert is Surprised") where, like chapter 41 of Anne of the Island, there is an ending and a new beginning for Anne, as she quotes again from Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey and Michael William Blafe's The Bohemian Girl. Yet, as Anne has grown as a character, she no longer relies so heavily on fairy tales, as her other dreams, of being loved and wanted, have been realized.