Brian Friel (1929-2015) Tribute List

Tony-winning Irish playwright Brian Friel died on Oct 2, 2015 at the age of 86. Friel was constantly exploring issues of language in his plays, often painting beautifully lyrical linguistic portraits of emotions and experiences that his characters contended were beyond the power of mere words. His most popular play, Dancing at Lughnasa, was about a group of sisters and the weight and joy of personal history. Above all, Brian Friel was a master of language and had an amazing ability to use words to evoke reactions from an audience. Here are ten vocabulary words from the plays of Brian Friel.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. elude
    escape, either physically or mentally
    Even if I did speak Irish, I’d always be considered an outsider here, wouldn’t I? I may learn the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won’t it? The private core will always be ...hermetic, won’t it?
    — Translations
  2. hermetic
    completely sealed or airtight
    Even if I did speak Irish, I’d always be considered an outsider here, wouldn’t I? I may learn the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won’t it? The private core will always be ...hermetic, won’t it?
    — Translations
  3. opulent
    rich and superior in quality
    Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception - a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to... inevitabilities.
    — Translations
  4. indignity
    an affront to one's self-esteem
    They died for their beliefs. They died for their fellow citizens. They died because they could endure no longer the injuries and injustices and indignities that have been their lot for too many years.
    — The Freedom of the City
  5. cohesion
    the state of sticking together
    I’m not talking about falsifying, about lying, for heaven’s sake. I’m simply talking about making a pattern [...] offering a cohesion to that random catalogue of deliberate acheivement and sheer accident that constitute your life. And that cohesion will be a narrative that people will read and be satisfied by.
    — Making History
  6. empirical
    derived from experiment and observation rather than theory
    ‘I have tried to be objective and faithful - after my artistic fashion - to the empirical method. But when there was tension between historical “fact” and the imperative of the fiction, I’m glad to say I kept faith with the narrative ... history and fiction are related and comparable forms of discourse and ... an historical text is a kind of literary artifact.
    — Making History
  7. assuage
    provide physical relief, as from pain
    When I remember it, I think of it as dancing. Dancing with eyes half–closed because to open them would break the spell. Dancing as if language had surrendered to movement - as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper...sacred things, to be in touch with some otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of life and all its hopes might be found in those assuaging notes and those hushed rhythms and in those silent and hypnotic movements.
    — Dancing at Lughnasa
  8. ineffable
    defying expression or description
    Whatever it is we desire but can’t express. What is beyond Language. The inexpressible...The ineffable.
    — Wonderful Tennessee
  9. acquisitive
    eager to attain and possess material possessions
    A rich language. A rich literature. You’ll find, sir, that certain cultures expend on their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives.
    — Translations
  10. ostentation
    pretentious or showy or vulgar display
    A rich language. A rich literature. You’ll find, sir, that certain cultures expend on their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives.’
    — Translations
Created on Fri Oct 02 11:12:56 EDT 2015 (updated Thu Oct 08 12:19:32 EDT 2015)

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