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Unit 5: Selection Vocabulary 2

This list covers "The Postmaster," "Dulce et Decorum Est," "The Second Coming," and Literary Seminar: The Bloomsbury Group.
17 words 7 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. exile
    the act of expelling a person from their native land
    On some evenings, seated at his desk in the corner of the big empty shed, the postmaster too would call up memories of his own home, of his mother and his sister, of those for whom in his exile his heart was sad...
  2. resign
    leave voluntarily, as a job or position
    The postmaster, of his own accord, went on to tell her that his application for a transfer had been rejected, so he had resigned his post and was going home.
  3. inscrutable
    difficult or impossible to understand
    These words were kindly meant, no doubt: but inscrutable are the ways of a woman's heart!
  4. dumbfounded
    as if rendered speechless with astonishment and surprise
    The postmaster was dumbfounded. He had never seen Ratan like this before.
  5. trifle
    something of small importance
    He brought out from his pocket the whole of his month's salary, retaining only a trifle for his travelling expenses.
  6. dim
    lacking clarity or distinctness
    Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
    As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
  7. sight
    the range of vision
    In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
    He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
  8. smother
    deprive of oxygen and prevent from breathing
    If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
    Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
    And watch the white eyes writhing in his face
  9. gyre
    a round shape formed by a series of concentric circles
    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
  10. revelation
    communication by a divine or supernatural agency
    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
  11. reel
    revolve quickly and repeatedly around one's own axis
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
  12. indignant
    angered at something unjust or wrong
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
  13. core
    a small group of indispensable persons or things
    This set of budding writers, artists, critics, and thinkers formed the core of the original Bloomsbury Group.
  14. atonal
    characterized by avoidance of traditional musical scales
    The sisters’ dinners and the beginning of the Bloomsbury Group coincided with the beginning of the Modernist movement, of which early works included, among others, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899), abstract paintings by Kandinsky, and atonal music by Schoenberg.
  15. obscure
    not famous or acclaimed
    In addition to more obscure works, Hogarth also published significant works of the Modernist period...
  16. propriety
    correct behavior
    More recent critics argue that the group’s progressive thinking has been overly romanticized, and despite bucking some trends of Victorian propriety, members have been criticized for everything from anti-Semitism (reflected in Virginia Woolf’s personal letters about her feelings on marrying Leonard, a Jewish man, and in the stereotypes sometimes seen in her characters) to participation in colonization (Leonard was in the Colonial Civil Service in Ceylon).
  17. bourgeoisie
    a socioeconomic group that is neither wealthy nor poor
    Still others point out that the majority of the group were highly privileged and critique the group as elitist bourgeoisie playing at being bohemians.
Created on Wed Dec 23 10:30:20 EST 2020 (updated Wed Jan 06 08:55:56 EST 2021)

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