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government record of such a person. His supposed character was used by many writers, however, usually as a figure of fun in the post-Bonaparte era.

      In time, Chauvin’s excess of love for his country came to be analogously applied to over-the-top zealotry and claims of superiority of any kind. So next time someone calls you a chauvinist, male or female, do not return the insult but content yourself with the realisation that your knowledge, at least, is superior because you now know they are calling you after a man who probably didn’t exist.

      CHEKHOVIAN; CHEKHOV’S GUN

      Anton Chekhov’s very Russian convolutions have graced the stage since the plays were written, mostly in the 1890s, following his period as a short-story writer. ‘Chekhovian’ describes work that resembles that of Chekhov (1860–1904), perhaps set in that period, with ensemble playing and usually full of Russian gloom.

      ‘Chekhov’s Gun’ is also something invented by the writer. To paraphrase him, ‘If you show the audience a gun in the first Act, it must be fired in Act Three.’ It’s now accepted as a staple of theatre, even if Chekhov doesn’t always get the credit.

      DAVIDIC

      Pertaining to King David of the Israelites, who was a controversial figure even in his own lifetime. He famously slew Goliath of Gath with a slingshot – actually, the stone only knocked out the giant and David hurriedly lopped off his head – giving us the eponymous ‘David and Goliath’ contest which is used by too many clichéd commentators. David took Uriah the Hittite’s wife – beautiful Bathsheba – after sending him to die in battle, and saw his own son, Absalom, killed in a rebellion against his rule.

      Yet he established Jerusalem as capital of Israel and God made the Davidic Covenant with him – the promise that the Messiah would come from the line of David, and his kingdom would last for ever. The Davidic psalms, some of which he composed (but not all as was traditionally thought), remain some of the finest prayer-hymns in any religion.

      DICKENSIAN

      The dickens of the thing about Charles Dickens is that his varied canon should be impossible to encapsulate in a single word.

      Think of Charles Dickens’ books and most literate people will conjure up a plethora of scenes: Scrooge reaching out to Tiny Tim; Sidney Carton going bravely to the guillotine; Wilkins Micawber saying something will turn up; Oliver Twist asking for more; and Pip loving Estella after the looming presence of Magwitch.

      With all the vast array of characters and locations in his books, why does the word ‘Dickensian’ conjure up an image of London’s reeking underbelly in Victorian times?

      Some writers have used the adjective to describe Christmas scenes, and others use Dickensian in an almost pejorative sense, as in Dickensian whimsy or sentimentality. By far the most common usage of Dickensian, however, is linked to descriptions of 19th-century London, tales of tenemented slums and fog-bound streets full of orphaned children, heart-of-gold prostitutes and nasty thieves.

      Dickensian poverty was very real, and Dickens himself experienced it. His father, John, was a Navy clerk until his rash spending landed him and his family – except young Charles – in Marshalsea Prison until his debts were repaid when an aunt died and left John Dickens a legacy.

      The family left prison but continued to struggle, their income boosted partially by Charles working ten hours a day in a shoe-polish factory where working conditions were inhumane.

      The genius of the author was to remember these bitter times and write so eloquently about them when he turned to journalism and fiction. He was a superb journalist who wrote shorthand fluently, allowing him to cover events and politics in a swift and memorable manner. It was when he moved into fiction that he truly exposed the horrors in which the poor and downtrodden lived in a style that was both readable and influential – such was the public outrage he occasioned by his books that entire slum areas were cleared and rebuilt.

      Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in 1812 and died of a stroke at the age of 58 in 1870, by which time he was the most famous novelist in the world. His critics may say he was overly sentimental and that his characters bordered on caricatures, but his storylines and marvellous prose have survived a century-and-a-half as classics, and his books have never been out of print since they were first produced, mainly as serials in monthly magazines.

      Not only did he give us an eponym based on his own name, but Dickens created many others – we still call unctuous people Uriah Heeps, while Gradgrindian and other eponyms brought about by Dickens have their place in dictionaries.

      Yet had he not had a change of heart, we would never have heard of ‘Dickensian’. The author started, and meant to continue, his fiction-writing life as ‘Boz’ – the mispronounced nickname ‘Moses’ by his younger brother Augustine – as he was already producing major pieces of serious journalism under his own name, and did not want his first, often funny, stories to detract from that work. He was soon persuaded to change to his own name, however, and brought many topics from his London-based journalism into his fiction. He wrote about what he had personally seen and known, creating the Dickensian world that entrances readers to this day.

      There is no official statue of Dickens in Britain. In his Will, the author stated that no such public memorial should be erected. Instead, he left us a host of great novels, and characters whose names have become eponyms, while his own eponymous world will live for as long as books are read. What finer memorial could there be?

      DRACONIAN

      We look back to the Athens of between 2,300 and 2,700 years ago as the breeding ground in which so many of our decent, modern concepts – democracy, drama, philosophy – were wrought. The city was at the heart of Greek cultural development, which in turn influenced so many contemporary and later cultures, including those of Egypt and, above all, Rome. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle alone would have guaranteed Athens its place in history, but add the magnificence of the Acropolis inspired by the genius of Pericles, both a great general and art lover, and so many more writers, artists and philosophers, and you understand why classical Athens was and is so influential.

      Yet it was not all sweetness and light in Athens. The city was ruled by powerful families with a system of blood feuds and unwritten laws until a much-maligned yet inspirational figure emerged towards the end of the 7th century BC.

      Dracon, or Draco of Athens, basically invented zero tolerance to deal with lawlessness in the city. We know very little about the man himself, but he was clearly in a position of power around 620BC when he wrote the first constitution of Athens.

      The laws he laid down were extremely tough, so much so that they were reputed to be written in blood. Death was the punishment for just about every misdemeanour, even that of getting into excessive debt. On the other hand, Dracon was the first lawmaker to differentiate between murder and involuntary killing, a fairer law which underpins the western approach to capital crime to this day.

      There is no doubt that, in a few short years, Dracon’s laws transformed Athens into a peaceable place, and we can certainly speculate whether the arts and philosophy would have flourished there without his brutal code. His successor Solon came along and brought in a much less cruel legal system, but Dracon had made it possible for him to do so.

      The people of Athens allegedly showed their gratitude to Dracon in a bizarre fashion – in the custom of the time, one night in the theatre they honoured him by showering cloaks, capes, hats and other clothing upon him, which promptly buried poor Dracon and smothered him to death.

      His name lives on as a byword for harshness, however, and, when JK Rowling was looking for a name for the ‘baddie’ in her Harry Potter series, she conjured up ‘Draco’ Malfoy.

      DYLANESQUE

      Bob Dylan, nonpareil wordsmith, was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, on 24 May 1941. His remarkable life

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