« Stansell Web | Main | Comparing Stansell & Whitman to Wirth, contrasting to Engels »

Mrs. Grundy according to Wikipedia

Mrs Grundy
WIkipedia.com

Mrs Grundy is the personification of the tyranny of conventional propriety (from Thomas Morton's play Speed the Plough, which appeared in 1798).

(By contemporary rules of punctuation of 1798, still prevailing in North America today, she is Mrs. Grundy.)

Peter Fryer's book Mrs. Grundy: Studies in English Prudery concerns prudish behaviour, such as the use of euphemisms for underwear.

By the mid-nineteenth century, Mrs. Grundy was so well established in the public imagination as a canonical character that Samuel Butler, in his popular novel Erewhon, could refer to her in anagram (as the goddess Ydgrun).

Robert A. Heinlein also mentions her, for example, in his novels The Number of the Beast and To Sail Beyond The Sunset.

Charles Dickens also mention her in his novel "Hard Times".

So, basically you call someone a "Mrs. Grundy" if they are prudish and super conventional i guess...hmm...kind of opposite of what the Bohemians were going for.

Post a comment

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.