Literary Artifacts

While still an undergraduate I embarked upon an odd quest while poring through some dense collections of literary criticism. I started noting when I came across an especially colorful metaphor or figure of speech, finding things like Coleridge's "Seven League Boots of Self Opinion" and Shelley's "Sword of Lightning." Soon a had quite a laundry list of items. It has been fun to 'collect' what I have so far, but occurs to me that I will need several lifetimes to amass anything like a complete list. Please feel free to add whatever comes to mind, be it a Cask of Amontillado or Maccomber's gimlet. I offer my toast to you, with a grail filled with the milk of human kindness from the literary province of Dickens.

Oh yes, here is what I have so far:

Emergency Requisition(read..."can't find my old list):

Shelley's atom of inexhaustible thought
1 pack Reynold's controverted points (ammo)
1 Jeffers 'lead gift' slug
Macomber's elephant gun
Coleridge's Seven League Boots of Self-Opinion
A Minister's Black Veil (facial mosquito netting)
Milton's Mantle
The radiant armor of Shakespeare from Wordsworth
Hawthorne's Crystal Butterfly (for barter)
1 vorpal blade from Carroll
1 pack of Claudius' poison peas (Hamlet)
Prospero's spell book
a giant's goblet filled with the Milk of Human kindness
Aladdin's lamp
Macomber's gimlet
a bull's ear
a picador
Falstaff's toasted cheese
Falstaff's cup 'o sack
captain's money bag from Stevenson


Mr Toad's roadster
Gatsby's roadster
roadster with mechanic from Man and Superman
H.G. Well's Time Machine
Verne's Nautilus
SS Pequod
HMS Demeter
HMS Bounty
Oz's Hot Air Balloon
London's Dog sled
Rosinate, Don Quixote's horse
Charon's boat
The Argo
Dracula's coach and horses
Conrad's river boat
Twain's river boat
The Ark
The Leviathan (only in dire need, with Nemo's oxygen tanks)

Hmmm...I wonder if the jewelled dog leash from Great Gatsby would do any good on any of the dog's from London's Call of the Wild. Probably not. The black poodle from Goethe's Faust might be distracted by it for a little while, but I'm sure that neither the earthy Buck or the vicious Spitz would take much interest in a dog leash with rhinestones, but I could be wrong. Anyway, that is enough inter-textual rambling for one message.

Fair winds and following Contexts,

Quandrus