[Vwoolf] Giles (ex names and nations)

[Mark Hussey]

 Sorry if I’ve overlooked a post, but… Giles Lytton Strachey 
    On Sunday, May 15, 2022, 12:12:37 PM EDT, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:  
 
  Giles is not very common in Woolf. It was a popular name in the medieval period (St Giles was the patron saint of “cripples”), and appropriately there’s a Giles Martyn in “The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn”. Giles sounds a posh name to me,ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart    This Message Is From an External Sender  This message came from outside your organization.      Report Suspicious      ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerEndGiles is not very common in Woolf.  It was a popular name in the medieval period (St Giles was the patron saint of “cripples”), and appropriately there’s a Giles Martyn in “The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn”.  Giles sounds a posh name to me, and indeed a distant cousin of Woolf’s was Sir Gyles Isham, Bt (see letter no. 2690), who nevertheless was an ACTOR:https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyles_Isham__;!!KGKeukY!zyj8oUENhg2KrmHjwUUVOgHMcQeV-iHt3a5l2lWfKJ-Smp3d1-5FEjwTcsZw3RfHgI-bigtOP-T0XX09pqVR9A$  Stuart From: Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2022 10:00 AMTo: VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Subject: [Vwoolf] names and nations Stuart’s exasperation reminds me of this passage from Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 – it deals with surnames rather than given names, but the emotions inspired are similar. Colonel Cathcart has realized how often the name Yossarian ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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Stuart’s exasperation reminds me of this passage from Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 – it deals with surnames rather than given names, but the emotions inspired are similar. Colonel Cathcart has realized how often the name Yossarian is associated with events that dealt him metaphorical black eyes. 
 
  

Yossarian - the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist. It was an odious, alien distasteful name, that just did not inspire confidence. It was not at all like such clean, crisp, honest American names as Cathcart, Peckem and Dreedle.
 
  

(Why does Heller give “Communist” a capital letter?)
 
  

One Woolf name I have often wondered about is Giles, in Between the Acts. What associations does that name have for readers - or did it have for Woolf?
 
  

Jeremy H
 
  

  

Jeremy Hawthorn
 
Professor Emeritus
 
NTNU
 
7491 Trondheim
 
Norway
 
  


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