1 7 8 HAPPINESS

Happiness

This theme largely deals with states of perfect contentment or bliss. Imaginary places that have come to stand for an idealized state of happiness can be found at the closely related theme Idyllic Places. •See also

Comedy and Humour, Smiles.

Adam and Eve In the Bible, Adam was the first man, created by God from the dust of the ground and God's breath, and Eve the first woman, formed from one of Adam's ribs. They lived together in innocence in the Garden of Eden until they were tempted to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge. As a result of this original sin of disobedience, they were banished from Eden. Adam and Eve can represent a state of utter contentment, particularly when

preceding the loss or destruction of such happiness. • See special entry D ADAM

AND EVE on p. 5.

We are Adam and Eve, unfallen, in Paradise.

CEORGE ELIOT The Mill on the Floss, 1860

Correggio Antonio Allegri da Correggio (c.1494-1534) was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance. His best-known works are a series of frescos in the Camera di San Paolo and other Parma churches, painted in a sensual style, with a soft play of light and colour and striking use of foreshortening. These frescos often depict frolicking putti (cherubs) with an exuberance that captures the vitality and joyfulness of children.

The rush of conflicting feelings was too great for Maggie to say much when Lucy, with a face breathing playful joy, like one of Correggio's cherubs, poured forth her triumphant revelation.

GEORGE ELIOT The Mill on the Floss, 1860

Dionysiac • See DIONYSIAN.

Dionysian In Greek mythology, Dionysus (also called Bacchus) was a Greek god, the son of Zeus and Semele. Originally a god of the fertility of nature, associated with wild and ecstatic religious rites, in later traditions he was a god of wine who loosened inhibitions and inspired creativity in music and poetry. 'Dionysian' and 'Dionysiac' usually describe frenzied and unrestrained abandon or ecstasy.

He longed to be possessed by the spirit of Dionysian abandon.

DAVID LODGE The British Museum Is Falling Down, 1965

And the people in the streets, it seemed to him, whether milling along Oxford Street or sauntering from lion to lion in Trafalgar Square, formed another golden host, beautiful in the antique cold-faced way of Blake's pastel throngs, pale Dionysiacs, bare thighs and gaudy cloth, lank hair and bell-bottoms.

JOHN UPDIKE Bech: A Book, 1970

Oh, how Sir Gerald . . . would love to be able to wallow in that filth with such Dionysian abandon!

TOM WOLFE The Bonfire of the Vanities, 1987

HEIGHT 1 8 1

Height

ALICE, the TOWER OF BABEL, and JACK'S BEANSTALK are all known for grow-

ing extremely tall, SIMEON STYLITES, on the other hand, was famously

positioned at a great height off the ground. •See also Large Size Small

Size.

Alice At the beginning of Lewis Carroll's children's story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit-hole and finds herself apparently tumbling down a very deep well. Not long after drinking from a bottle labelled 'Drink me' which makes her shrink to a height of ten inches, she is required to eat a cake labelled 'Eat me' which makes her grow so tall that she eventually fills a room. • See special entry a ALICE IN WONDERLAND on p.

10.

'Yes,' I admitted, feeling enormous, like Alice after she'd OD'd on Eat Me mushrooms. Size 2 women have that effect on me.

LINDA BARNES Cold Case, 1997

Tower of Babel According to the Book of Genesis in the Bible, the descendants of Noah moved to the plain of Shinar where they settled and decided to build a city and a tower, the Tower of Babel, 'whose top may reach unto heaven' (Gen. n : 4). God punished them for their presumption by making their speech mutually unintelligible.

I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them. For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by their tower, have intended to rear the loftiest masthead in all Asia, or Africa either; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as that great stone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board, in the dread gale of Cod's wrath; therefore, we cannot give these Babel builders priority over the Egyptians.

HERMAN MELVILLE Moby Dick, 1851

Jack and the beanstalk In the children's fairy story of Jack and the beanstalk, Jack exchanges his mother's cow for some magic beans from which an enormous beanstalk grows up into the clouds. Jack climbs up and steals treasure from the giant's castle, eventually cutting down the beanstalk and killing the giant.

The next morning, when Thomasin withdrew the curtains of her bedroom window, there stood the Maypole in the middle of the green, its top cutting into the sky. It had sprung up in the night, or rather early morning, like Jack's bean-stalk.

THOMAS HARDY The Return of the Native, 1880

St Simeon Stylites St Simeon Stylites (c.390-459) was a Syrian monk who is said to have become the first to practise an extreme form of ascetisism which involved living for thirty years on top of a tall pillar.

In Saint Stylites, the famous Christain hermit of old times, who built him a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of his life on its summit,