"The Cinema" V. Woolf

Question 1

Fag-end

PEOPLE say that the savage no longer exists in us, that we are at the fag-end of civilization, that everything has been said already, and that it is too late to be ambitious.

Answer 1

• the last part of something, especially when regarded as less important or interesting

Question 2

Accretions

The bars in this case, of course, are so highly wrought and so covered over with accretions of alien matter that it is extremely difficult to hear anything distinctly.

Answer 2

• growth or increase by the gradual accumulation of additional layers or matter

Question 3

Wrought

The bars in this case, of course, are so highly wrought and so covered over with accretions of alien matter that it is extremely difficult to hear anything distinctly.

Answer 3

• made or fashioned in the specified way

Question 4

Bestirring

The eye licks it all up instantaneously, and the brain, agreeably titillated, settles down to watch things happening without bestirring itself to think.

Answer 4

• make a physical or mental effort; exert or rouse oneself

Question 5

Somnolence

What is its purpose, then, to be roused suddenly in the midst of its agreeable somnolence and asked for help?

Answer 5

• sleepy; drowsy

Question 6

Chasm

The war sprung its chasm at the feet of all this innocence and ignorance but it was thus that we danced and pirouetted, toiled and desired, thus that the sun shone and the clouds scudded, up to the very end.

Answer 6

• a profound difference between people, viewpoints, feelings, etc.

Question 7

Rapacity

The cinema fell upon its prey with immense rapacity, and to the moment largely subsists upon the body of its unfortunate victim.

Answer 7

• aggressive greed

Question 8

Circumlocution

It has speed and slowness; dartlike directness and vaporous circumlocution.

Answer 8

• the use of many words where fewer would do, especially in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive

Question 9

Subserviently

Something abstract, something which moves with controlled and conscious art, something which calls for the very slightest help from words or music to make itself intelligible, yet justly uses them subserviently—of such movements and abstractions the films may in time to come be composed.

Answer 9

• serving as a means to an end

Question 10

Sir Thomas Lipton

There is the king shaking hands with a football team; there is Sir Thomas Lipton’s yacht; there is Jack Horner winning the Grand National.

Answer 10

• was a Scotsman of Ulster-Scots parentage who was a self-made man, merchant, and yachtsman. He created the Lipton tea brand and was the most persistent challenger in the history of the America’s Cup.

Question 11

Jack Horner

There is the king shaking hands with a football team; there is Sir Thomas Lipton’s yacht; there is Jack Horner winning the Grand National.

Answer 11

• was a British Thoroughbred race horse who won the 1926 Grand National.

Question 12

Mile End Road

They despise the flight of gulls, ships on the Thames, the Prince of Wales, the Mile End Road, Piccadilly Circus.

Answer 12

• is a district within East London, England, and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

Question 13

Piccadilly Circus

They despise the flight of gulls, ships on the Thames, the Prince of Wales, the Mile End Road, Piccadilly Circus.

Answer 13

• is a road junction and public space of London’s West End. In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning “circle”, is a round open space at a street junction.

Question 14

Anna Karenina

The eye says ‘Here is Anna Karenina.’ A voluptuous lady in black velvet wearing pearls comes before us.

Answer 14

• is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877. Widely regarded as a pinnacle in realist fiction.

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Question 15

Vesuvius

Then, as smoke pours from Vesuvius, we should be able to see thought in its wildness, in its beauty, in its oddity, pouring from men with their elbows on a table; from women with their little handbags slipping to the floor.

Answer 15

• is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Question 16

Dr. Caligari

For instance, at a performance of Dr. Caligari the other day a shadow shaped like a tadpole suddenly appeared at one corner of the screen.

Answer 16

• is a 1920 German silent horror film. It is one of the most influential films of the German Expressionist movement and is often considered to be one of the greatest horror films of the silent era in film.

Question 17

Sébastien Érard

It is as if the savage tribe, instead of finding two bars of iron to play with, had found scattering the seashore fiddles, flutes, saxophones, trumpets, grand pianos by Erard and Bechstein, and had begun with incredible energy, but without knowing a note of music, to hammer and thump upon them all at the same time.

Answer 17

• was a French instrument maker of German origin who specialised in the production of pianos and harps, developing the capacities of both instruments and pioneering the modern piano

Question 18

Carl Bechstein

It is as if the savage tribe, instead of finding two bars of iron to play with, had found scattering the seashore fiddles, flutes, saxophones, trumpets, grand pianos by Erard and Bechstein, and had begun with incredible energy, but without knowing a note of music, to hammer and thump upon them all at the same time.

Answer 18

• was the maker of C. Bechstein pianos and the founder of C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik.