History Literature / PippaPasses

* BlitheSpirit: Cheerful, optomistic Pippa strolls through Asolo singing, causing everyone who hears her to have some kind of epiphany.

-> "God's in his Heaven
->All's right with the world!"

* CarpeDiem: Sebald believes this, saying "One must be venturous and fortunate/What is one young for, else? In age we’ll sigh/O’er the wild, reckless, wicked days flown ever." Of course, he's justifying murdering his girlfriend's husband.

* HaveAGayOldTime: "Oh! were every worm a maggot, Every fly a grig, Every bough a Christmas fagot, Every tune a jig!"
** Take note that in England, a Fagot is a large meatball made out of Beef and Lamb mixed together with breadcrumbs.

* InnocentSwearing: A meta example, and one of the most famous in literature. Towards the end appear these rather unusual lines: "Then, owls and bats, cowls and ''twats'',/Monks and nuns, in a cloister’s moods,/Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!". Many years later the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary asked Browning about this and he pointed them to his source material, a 1660 poem that included the lines "They talk’t of his having a Cardinall’s Hat/They’d send him as soon an Old Nun’s Twat." Browning took that to mean that a "twat" is part of a nun's habit, and so used it in the poem. In fact "twat" meant the same thing in 1660 as it did in 1842 and as it does in the 21st century, a vulgar CountryMatters reference. Apparently no one told him, and Browning went to his grave not knowing about it. [[AccidentalAesop the moral of the story being you should always look up words you don't know the meaning of before using them.]]
* LaResistance: Luigi is an Italian patriot plotting to assassinate the emperor of Austria (Asolo and the Venuto region belonged at that time to Austria).

* {{Cuckold}}: Sebald describes Luca as a "wittol", that is, a cuckold who is perfectly aware that he's being cuckolded and is OK with it.

* YourCheatingHeart: Ottima is having an affair with a man named Sebald.

* WeddingDay: Jules and Phene are getting married.

* YourCheatingHeart: Ottima is having an affair with a man named Sebald.

* InnocentSwearing: A meta example, and one of the most famous in literature. Towards the end appear these rather unusual lines: "Then, owls and bats, cowls and ''twats'',/Monks and nuns, in a cloister’s moods,/Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!". Many years later the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary asked Browning about this and he pointed them to his source material, a 1660 poem that included the lines "They talk’t of his having a Cardinall’s Hat/They’d send him as soon an Old Nun’s Twat." Browning took that to mean that a "twat" is part of a nun's habit, and so used it in the poem. In fact "twat" meant the same thing in 1660 as it did in 1842 and as it does in the 21st century, a vulgar CountryMatters reference. Apparently no one told him, and Browning went to his grave not knowing about it.

-> "[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion God's in his Heaven/All's right with the world!]]"

''Pippa Passes'' is an 1841 verse drama by Robert Browning. The poem describes a single day in the life of Pippa, a young silk-winding girl who goes for a walk through the town of Asolo, Italy. Pippa is happy and innocent and cheerful, attributing goodness and decency to all the people she passes--but as the poem demonstrates, the people of Asolo are far darker and more complex than innocent Pippa might have guessed. She sings of "Asolo's Four Happiest Ones", namely Ottima, wife of Luca the silk-mill owner; Jules, a French art student who is getting married that day; Luigi, an Italian patriot who lives with his mother on the hill; and Monsignor, a cleric.

-> "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world!"

* BlitheSpirit: Cheerful, optomistic Pippa strolls through Asolo singing, influencing everyone else's life for the better.

* AsYouKnow: One of Jules's fellow students recounts to the other students how they all tricked Jules into thinking Phene was his admirer.

-> "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world."

''Pippa Passes'' is an 1841 verse drama by Robert Browning. The poem describes a single day in the life of Pippa, a young silk-winding girl who goes for a walk through the town of Asolo, Italy. Pippa is happy and innocent and cheerful, attributing goodness and decency to all the people she passes--but as the poem demonstrates, the people of Asolo are far darker and more complex than innocent Pippa might have guessed.

* NewYearHasCome: New Year's Day is Pippa's only off day of the year, which is why she goes for a walk.