objective correlative

T. S. Eliot's term (first formulated in an essay on Hamlet) for "a situation or a sequence of events or objects that evokes a particular emotion in a reader or audience" [American Heritage Dictionary]. (For Eliot, Hamlet is not a great work because it lacks an objective correlative.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Occam's Razor

The hypothesis, proposed by William of Occam, that among competing explanations, the most likely to be correct is the simplest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

occult qualities

xxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

Occult Science

Book by Rudolf Steiner, first published in 1909--one of his major works.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Ode to the West Wind"

1820 poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, perhaps his best known lyric.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odin

The chief divinity of the Norse pantheon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odysseus

King of Ithaca, a warrior in the Trojan War, and the hero of Homer's The Odyssey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Odyssey

Epic poem, usually attributed to Homer, composed somewhere around the 8th century B.C., dealing with Odysseus' perilous journey home from the Trojan War to his native Ithaca.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olympus

The mountain believed to be the home of the principle Greek deities, including Zeus and his retinue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Omega Point

In the thought of Teilhard de Chardin, the end point or goal of all evolution, when the human mind reuinites with God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ontogenesis

In biology the development of an individual entity (as opposed to phylogenesis, the development of the species).

 

 

 

 

 

 

ontology

That branch of philosophy which studies the origin and nature of being.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Opposition is true friendship"

From Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (in "A Memorable Fancy").

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orchard View

Barfield's home in Kent until the death of his wife, Maud, in 1986, at which time he moved to the Walhatch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Order of the Golden Dawn

A society, dedicated to the study and practice of magic and the occult, founded by Alaistir Crowley. William Butler Yeats was once a member.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orestes

"[S]on of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and the  brother of Electra. When his father returned from the Trojan War, he was murdered by Clytemnestra and her lover,  Aegisthus" [Encyclopedia Mythica].

 

 

 

 

 

 

organic

In one meaning "having the characteristics of, or derived from living organisms" [New World Dictionary], and this was the sense in which it was used in Romanticism, especially by Coleridge, to designate the proper state of art. When Keats said that "poetry should comes as easily as leaves to a tree or it had better not come at all," he was voicing the basic principle of the Romantic faith in the organic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

orientalism

A fascination, in art, culture, etc., with the East, the Orient.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Origin of Species

Charles Darwin's 1859 book presenting his theory of evolution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orpheus

"In Greek mythology, poet and musician, the son of the muse Calliope (see Muses) and Apollo, god of music, or Oeagrus, king of Thrace. He was given the lyre by Apollo and became such an excellent musician that he had no rival among mortals. When Orpheus played and sang, he moved everything animate and inanimate. His music enchanted the trees and rocks and tamed wild beats, and even the rivers turned in their course to follow him" [Microsoft Encarta].

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Outline of History

Sweeping, positivistic, 1920 history of the world by H. G. Wells.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oxford Christians

C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and those other Oxford-based writers whose work is underpinned by Christian belief.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oxford English Dictionary

In 1879 the Scott lexicographer Sir James Murray (1837-1915) became the editor of the New English Dictionary for the Philological Society and Oxford University Press. In 1928 the 10-volume New English Dictionary on Historical Principles or OED was published.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oxford Romantics

Another name for the Oxford Christians or Inklings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ozymandias

Greek name of Ramses II (1304-1237 B. C.), King of Egypt. Shelley's poem of the same name.