Anagoge

Anagoge (pronounced an-uh-goh-jee)

(1) The spiritual or mystical interpretation of a word or passage beyond the literal, allegorical or moral sense (especially in Biblical criticism); A form of allegorical interpretation of Scripture that seeks hidden meanings regarding the future life.

(2) A spiritual interpretation or application of words (following the tradition with the Scriptures.

(3) In psychology, deriving from, pertaining to, or reflecting the moral or idealistic striving of the unconscious.

(4) The mystical interpretation or hidden sense of words.

1350-1400: From the Middle English anagoge, from the Late Latin anagōgē, from the Medieval Latin anagōgia & anagogicus from the Ancient Greek ἀναγωγή (anagōgḗ) (elevation; an uplifting; spiritual or mystical enlightenment), the construct being an- (up) + agōgḗ (feminine of agōgós) (leading), from anagein (to lead up, lift up), the construct being ana- (up) + agein (to lead, put in motion) from the primitive Indo-European root ag- (to drive, draw out or forth, move).  In theology, the adjective anagogical was from the early sixteenth century the more commonly used form, explaining the ways in which passages from Scripture had a “secondary, spiritual sense”.  The idea of a “spiritual, hidden, allegorical or mystical meaning” spread to literature and other fields where it operates as a special form of allegorical interpretation.  The alternative spelling is anagogy.  Anagoge is a noun, anagogic & anagogical are adjectives and anagogically is an adverb; the noun plural is anagoges.

Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley at the Baths of Caracalla, depicted writing Prometheus Unbound, oil on canvas, painted posthumously Joseph Severn (1793–1879), Rome, Italy, 1845.

In literary analysis, there does seem a fondness for classifying methods into groups of fours.  Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) was an English novelist and poet but despite a background in literature and little else, through family connections he was in 1819 appointed an administrator in the East India Company (which “sort of” ran British India in the years before the Raj).  It was an example of the tradition of “amateurism” much admired by the British establishment, something which didn’t survive the harsher economic realities of the late twentieth century although some still affect the style.  Despite being untrained in such matters, his career with the company was long and successful so he must have had a flair for the business although his duties were not so onerous as to preclude him from continuing to write both original compositions and works of literary analysis.  In 1820 he published Four Ages of Poetry which was regarded as a “provocative” and although a serious critique, the tone was whimsical, poetry classified into four periods: iron, gold, silver & brass.  His friend Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) understood the satire but seems to have been appalled anyone would treat his art with such flippancy, quickly penning the retaliatory essay Defence of Poetry although the text was unfinished and remained unpublished until 1840, almost two decades after his death.  It’s remembered now for its final sentence: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”  With that, the few thousand souls on the planet who buy (and presumably read) poetry collections might concur but for the many more who can’t tell the difference between a masterpiece and trite doggerel, it may sound either a conceit or a threat.

Peacock not treating poets and their oeuvre which what they believed was due reverence left a mark and while Shelly died before he could finish his reply, more than a century later the English poet & academic literary I.A. Richards (1893–1979) in Science and Poetry (1926) still was moved to defend the poetic turf.  Although approvingly quoting the words of English poet (and what would now be called a “social commentator”) Matthew Arnold (1822–1888): “The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay.  There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve.  Our religion has materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it.  But for poetry the idea is everything.”, he nevertheless admitted “Extraordinary claims have often been made for poetry…”  Tellingly too, he acknowledged those claims elicited from many “astonishment” and the “more representative modern view” of the future of poetry would be that it’s “nil”.  Modern readers could decide for themselves whether that was as bleak as Peacock’s conclusion: “A poet in our times is a semi-barbarian in a civilized community.  He lives in the days that are past... In whatever degree poetry is cultivated, it must necessarily be to the neglect of some branch of useful study and it is a lamentable thing to see minds, capable of better things, tunning to seed in the spacious indolence of these empty aimless mockeries of intellectual exertion.”  Take that poets.

Peacock's second novel was the Regency-era three volume novel Melincourt (1817).  It was an ambitious work which explored issues as diverse as slavery, aspects of democracy and potential for currency destabilization inherent in the issue of paper money.  Another theme was the matter of differentiating between human beings and other animals, a central character being Sir Oran Haut-ton, an exquisitely mannered, musically gifted orangutan standing for election to the House of Commons.  The idea was thus of “an animal mimicking humanity” and the troubled English mathematician Dr Alan Turing (1912–1954) read Melincourt in 1948, some twelve months before he published a paper which included his “imitation game” (which came to be called the “Turing test”).  Turing was interested in “a machine mimicking humanity” and what the test involved was a subject reading the transcript of a natural-language conversation between a human and a machine, the object being to guess which interlocutor was the machine.  The test was for decades an element in AI (artificial intelligence) research and work on “natural language” computer interfaces but the field became a bit of a minefield because it was so littered with words like “feelings”, learning”, “thinking” and “consciousness”, the implications of which saw many a tangent followed.  Of course, by the 2020s the allegation bots like ChatGPT and character.ai have been suggesting their interlocutors commit suicide means it may be assumed that, at least for some subjects, the machine may have assumed a convincing human-like demeanour.  The next great step will be in the matter of thinking, feelings and consciousness when bio-computers are ready to be tested.  Bio-computers are speculative hybrids which combine what digital hardware is good at (storage, retrieval, computation etc) with a biological unit emulating a brain (good at thinking, imagining and, maybe, attaining self-awareness and thus consciousness).

Westminster Bridge And Abbey (1813), oil on canvas by William Daniell (1769–1837).

There’s more than one way to read Richards and it may be tacitly he accepted poetry had become something which would be enjoyed by an elite while others could spend their lives in ignorance of its charms, citing the sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth (1770–1850) as an experience for “the right kind of reader”.  So there it is: those who don’t enjoy poetry are the “wrong” kind of reader so to help the “right kind of reader”, Richards also came up with a foursome.  In Practical Criticism (1929) he listed the “four different meanings in a poem”: (1) the sense (what actually is said, (2) feeling (the writer's emotional attitude to what they have written), (3) tone (the writer's attitude towards their reader and (4) intention (the writer's purpose, the effect they seek to achieve).

A vision from Dante's Inferno: The Fifth Circle (1587) by Stradanus (1523-1605)), depicting Virgil and Dante on the River Styx in the fifth circle of Hell where the wrathful are for eternity condemned to splash around on the surface, fighting each other.  Helping the pair cross is the infernal ferryman Phlegyas.  Stradanus was one of the many names under which the Flemish artist Jan van der Straet painted, the others including Giovanni della Strada, Johannes della Strada, Giovanni Stradano, Johannes Stradano, Giovanni Stradanus, Johannes Stradanus, Jan van Straeten & Jan van Straten.

In literary theory, anagoge is one the classic “four levels of meaning” and while there is no consensus about the origins of the four, it’s clear there was an awareness of them manifest in the Middle Ages.  It was Dante (Dante Alighieri (circa 1265–1321)) in his Epistola a Cangrande (Epistle XIII to Cangrande della Scala (described usually as Epistle to Cangrande)) who most clearly explained the operation of the four.  Written in Latin sometime before 1343, the epistle was the author’s letter to his patron Cangrande della Scala (1291–1329), an Italian aristocrat and scion of the family which ruled Verona between 1308-1387; it was a kind of executive summary of the Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy (circa 1310-1321)) and an exposition of its structure.  Dante suggested the work could be analysed in four ways which he distinguished as (1) the literal or historical meaning, (2) the moral meaning, and (3) the allegorical meaning and (4) the anagogical.

Among scholars of Dante the epistle is controversial, not for the content but the matter of authenticity, not all agreeing it was the author who wrote the text, the academic factions dividing thus: (1) Dante wrote it all, (2) Dante wrote none of it and (3) Dante wrote the dedication to his patron but the rest of the text is from the hand of another and it’s left open whether that content reflected the thoughts of Dante as expressed to the mysterious scribe or it was wholly the creation of the “forger”.  Even AI (artificial intelligence) tools have been used (a textual analysis of the epistle, Divine Comedy and other material verified to have been written by Dante) and while the process produced a “probability index”, the findings seemed not to shift factional alignments.  Dante’s authorship is of course interesting but the historical significance of the “four levels of meaning” concept endures in literary theory regardless of the source.

First edition of The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by John Bunyan (1628–1688).

So the critics agreed the anagogical meaning of a text was its spiritual, hidden, or mystical meaning so anagoge (or anagogy) was a special form of allegorical interpretation.  Whether it should be thought a subset or fork of allegory did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries trouble some who argued the anagogue was a wholly separate layer of meaning if the subject was biblical or otherwise religious but merely a type of allegorical interpretation if applied to something secular; that’s a debate unlikely to be staged now.  However, given the apparent overlap between anagogical and allegorical, just which should be used may seem baffling, especially if the work to which the concept is being applied has a religious flavor.  There is in the Bible much allegory (something which seems sometimes lost on the latter-day literalists among the US Republican Party’s religious right-wing) but only some can be said truly to be anagogic and although the distinction can at the margins become blurred, that’s true also of other devotional literature.  The distinction is more easily observed of less abstract constructions such John Bunyan in The Pilgrim's Progress calling his protagonist “Christian”, the choice not merely a name but symbolic of the Christian soul’s journey to salvation, hinted at by the book’s full title being The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come.  For something to be judged anagogical, the text needs to look beyond the literal and moral senses to its ultimate, transcendent, or eschatological significance, illustrated by applying the four-fold technique (literal, moral, allegorical & anagogical) to the biblical description of Jerusalem which deconstructs as: (1) Literal (the actual physical city in history), (2) Allegorical (the Church), (3) Moral (the soul striving to find a path to God and (4) Anagogical (the heavenly Jerusalem, the final destiny of those humanity who kept the faith).  The point of the anagoge was thus one of ultimate destiny or divine fulfilment: heaven, salvation, forgiveness and eternal life.

That does not however mean the anagogical is of necessity teleological.  Teleology was from the New Latin teleologia a construct from the Ancient Greek τέλος (télos) (purpose; end, goal, result) genitive τέλεος (téleos) (end; entire, perfect, complete) + λόγος (lógos) (word, speech, discourse).  In philosophy, it was the study of final causes; the doctrine that final causes exist; the belief that certain phenomena are best explained in terms of purpose rather than cause (a moral theory that maintains that the rightness or wrongness of actions solely depends on their consequences is called a teleological theory).  The implications which could be found in that attracted those in fields as diverse as botany & zoology (interested in the idea purpose is a part of or is apparent in nature) and creationists (anxious to find evidence of design or purpose in nature and especially prevalent in the cult of ID (intelligent design), a doctrine which hold there is evidence of purpose or design in the universe and especially that this provides proof of the existence of a designer (ie how to refer to God without using the “G-word”)).  Rationalists (and even some who were somewhere on the nihilism spectrum) accepted the way the phrase was used in philosophy & biology but thought the rest weird.  It was fine to accept Aristotle’s (384-322 BC) point the eye exists for the purpose of allowing creatures to see or that it’s reasonable to build a theory like utilitarianism which judges actions by the outcomes or goals achieved but to suggest what is life of earth is an end, purpose, or goal which can be explained only as the work of a “creator” was ultimately just “making stuff up”.  So to reductionists (1) the allegorical was “means something else”, (2) the anagogical was “points upward to our ultimate spiritual destiny” and (3) the teleological was “explained by its end or purpose”.

Anagoge (pronounced an-uh-goh-jee) should not be confused with Anna Gogo (pronounced an-uh-goh-goh, left), a chartered engineer at Red Earth Engineering or Anna Go-Go (pronounced an-uh-goh-goh, right), persona of the proprietor of Anna's Go-Go Academy (a go-go dancing school).  Ms Go-Go is also a self-described “crazy cat lady” and the author of Cat Lady Manifesto (2024); she is believed to be high on J.D. Vance’s (b 1984; US vice president since 2025) enemies list.  Note the armchair's doilies, a cat lady favorite.

Anna & Gogomobil TS 250.

There is also Anna's Gogo which is "Anna explaining the Goggomobil TS 250 Coupé” (in Russian).  The TS 250 was a version of the Goggomobil two-door sedan, one of the many “microcars” that emerged in post-war Europe.  First displayed in 1954 by Bavaria-based Hans Glas GmbH of Dingolfing, the Goggomobil T 250 sedan was about as conventional in appearance as microcars got and its configuration (RWD (rear-wheel-drive) with a rear-mounted 245 cm³, air-cooled parallel twin engine) was not unusual, the economy of production made possible by adapting for four (sometime three) wheeled use mechanical components from motor-cycles.  Although rising prosperity, increased average road-speeds and safety concerns ultimately doomed the sector (in its original form although it survived in an urban niche and there’s been something of a modern revival), more than 200,000 of the little sedans (some with displacements a large as 392 cm³ which can be thought of (loosely) as the “muscle car” or “big block” version) manufactured, production finally ending in 1969.

Glas publictity shot for 1955 Gogomobil T 250 (left) and 1957 Googlemobile TS 250 Coupé (right).

The TS coupé appeared three years after the sedan and used the formula which for more than a century has proved profitable for the industry: Take the platform of a prosaic, mass-market car and drape atop a “more stylish and sporty” body, sometimes with (a little) more power and always a higher price.  The approach was in 1964 exemplified by the original Ford Mustang but the TS 250 was unusual in that to achieve the desired style, the coupé was actually longer than the sedan (3,035 mm (119.5 inches) vs 2,900 mm (114.2 inches) but describing the accommodation as “2+2” was more accurate to modern eyes than the “full four-seater” claim attached to the sedan although, in the era, it wasn’t unusual for families of five or more to be crammed inside.  Like the sedans, the coupés were offered in “muscle car spec” and on the Autobahns, if given long enough and without too many aboard, over 100 km/h (60 mph) was possible.

1959 Gogomobil Dart.

The platform also provided the underpinnings for the quirkiest of the breed, the Goggomobil Dart a fibreglass-bodied “microcar roadster” developed in Australia, with what seems now a remarkable 700-odd sold between 1959 to 1961.  Even when using the “big 392” (not to be confused with the 392 cubic inch (6.4 litre) Chrysler Hemi V8 which in the US had just ended production), it wasn’t “fast” but, weighing only 345 kg (761 lb), with a small frontal area and what was at the time industry-leading aerodynamic efficiency, it was lively enough in urban use and, on short circuits, some even appeared in competition.  The slippery lines however, while adding a little to top speed, hadn't benefited from wind-tunnel testing to ensure downforce was sufficient for high speed stability and even at around the 70 mph (110 km/h) the specially tuned versions could reach on race tracks, the drivers reported "front-end lift" and unpredictable directional stability.  All things considered, it was probably just as well the factory stopped at 392 cm³.  

Gogo Anime.

GogoAnime is an online streaming site for anime and related TV content (the distinction between the genres escapes most but it's well-established so must be real) which maintains a large library of anime content “ranging from classic titles to the latest releases” and for international audiences offers both “dubbed” (voice in various languages) and “subbed” (on-screen sub-titles in various languages) versions although there's a sub-set of “hard-core” aficionados for whom that will mean little because they know the best way to watch anime is with the sound muted.  Reviewers of GogoAnime praise its “intuitive and user-friendly interface” which makes streaming an effortless experience and it does appear the more disturbing anime content (much of which is available on physical media “off the shelf” in Japanese convenience stores) isn’t hosted.  The lawfulness of GogoAnime offering “free streaming” of commercially released product seems murky so gogo-scrapers should probably stream while they still can.

Although long in the toolbox of theologians & Biblical scholars, anagogical analysis became an element for critics of poetry and, as the post-modernists taught us, everything is text so it can be applied to anything.  One case-study popular in teaching was George Orwell’s (1903-1950) Animal Farm (1945) and that’s because there’s a interesting C&C (compare & contrast) exercise in working out the anagoge first in Orwell’s original book and then in the film versions distributed in post-war Europe, the fun in that being the film rights were purchased by the US CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) which prevailed upon the makers to alter the ending so the capitalist class didn’t look so bad.  By conventional four-way analysis, Animal Farm traditionally is broken down as (1) Literal meaning: A tale of the revolt of the animals against their human overlords, and the outcome of that revolt, (2) Moral meaning: Power tends to corrupt'; (c) Allegorical meaning: Major=comrade Lenin; Napoleon=comrade Stalin; Snowball=Comrade Trotsky; Jones=corrupt capitalist owners of the means of production & distribution.

The Canyons, Cinema Poster.

Although theologians and literary critics alike prefer to apply their analytical skills to material densely packed with obscure meanings and passages impenetrable to most, their techniques yield results with just about any text, even something as deliberately flat and affectless like The Canyons (Paul Schrader’s (b 1946) film of 2013 with a screenplay by Bret Easton Ellis (b 1964)) one intriguing aspect of which was naming a central character “Christian” although unlike Bunyan’s (1628–1688) worthy protagonist seeking salvation in The Pilgrim's Progress, Ellis’s creation was an opportunistic, nihilistic, manipulative sociopath.  The author seems never to have discussed any link between the two Christians, one on a path to salvation, the other mid-descent into a life of drugs, sex, and violence.  It may be it was just too mischievously tempting to borrow the name of one of Christendom’s exemplars of redemption and use it for so figure so totally amoral and certainly it was a fit with the writer’s bleak view of Hollywood.  Structurally, the parallels were striking, Bunyan’s Christian trekking from the City of Destruction to Celestial City whereas Ellis has his character not seeking salvation but remaining in Hollywood on his own path of destruction, affecting both those around him and ultimately him too.  In interviews, Ellis said he chose the name after reading the E. L. James (b 1963) novel Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) in which Christian Grey was a central character and The Canyons does share more contemporary cultural touch-points with the novel than with Bunyan’s work.

A Lindsay Lohan GIF from The Canyons.

(1) Literal or Historical Meaning (a trust-fund movie producer exercises control over his girlfriend while being entangled in transactional and destructive relationships with others in a decadent Hollywood; (2) Moral Meaning: Christian’s controlling, voyeuristic cruelty and his girlfriend’s compromises illustrate the corrosion of moral agency induced by narcissism and a superficial, consumerist culture); (3) Allegorical Meaning (The Canyons is built as a microcosm of what Hollywood is imagined to be, Christian representing the ruthless producer; Tara the girlfriend as the powerless talent unable to escape from a web of exploitation and other characters as collateral damage.  The shuttered cinemas in inter-cut shots serve as allegory for the death of cinema, replaced by shallow, formulaic “product”; the film ultimately less about the two-dimensional characters than the descent of a culture to a moral wasteland and (4) Anagogical Meaning (The film is an eschatology of cultural decay; art corrupted by money, leaving something alive but spiritually dead, something which some choose to map onto late-stage capitalism sustained by atomized, voyeuristic consumption with human life cast adrift from moral responsibility or even its recognition).  Of course for moral theologians accustomed to dancing on the heads of pins, an anagogical viewing of The Canyons might allow one to see some hint of something redemptive and the more optimistic might imagine it as a kind of warning of what may be rather than what is, encouraging us to resist in the hope of transcendence.  That’s quite a hope for a place depicted as owing something to what’s found in Dante’s nine circles.

Rumble

Rumble (pronounced ruhm-buhl)

(1) A form of low frequency noise

(2) In video game controllers, a haptic feedback vibration.

(3) In the jargon of cardiologists, a quality of a "heart murmur".

(4) In the slang of physicians (as "stomach rumble"), borborygmus (a rumbling sound made by the movement of gas in the intestines).

(5) In slang, a street fight between or among gangs.

(6) As rumble seat (sometimes called dickie seat), a rear part of a carriage or car containing seating accommodation for servants, or space for baggage; known colloquially as the mother-in-law seat (an now also used by pram manufacturers to describe a clip-on seat suitable for lighter infants).

(7) The action of a tumbling box (used to polish stones).

(8) As rumble strip, in road-building, a pattern of variation in a road's surface designed to alert inattentive drivers to potential danger by causing a tactile vibration and audible rumbling if they veer from their lane.

(9) In slang, to find out about (someone or something); to discover the secret plans of another (mostly UK informal and used mostly in forms such as: "I've rumbled her" or "I've been rumbled").

(10) To make a deep, heavy, somewhat muffled, continuous sound, as thunder.

(11) To move or travel with such a sound:

1325-1375: From Middle English verbs rumblen, romblen & rummelyn, frequentative form of romen (make a deep, heavy, continuous sound (also "move with a rolling, thundering sound" & "create disorder and confusion")), equivalent to rome +‎ -le.  It was cognate with the Dutch rommelen (to rumble), the Low German rummeln (to rumble), the German rumpeln (to be noisy) and the Danish rumle (to rumble) and the Old Norse rymja (to roar or shout), all of imitative origin.  The noun form emerged in the late fourteenth century, description of the rear of a carriage dates from 1808, replacing the earlier rumbler (1801), finally formalized as the rumble seat in 1828, a design extended to automobiles, the last of which was produced in 1949.  The slang noun meaning "gang fight" dates from 1946 and was an element in the 1950s "moral panic" about such things.  Rumble is a noun & verb, rumbler is a noun, rumbled is a verb, rumbling is a noun, verb & adjective and rumblingly is an adverb; the noun plural is rumbles.

Opening cut from studio trailer for Lindsay Lohan's film Freakier Friday (Walt Disney Pictures, 2025) available on Rumble.  Founded in 2013 as a kind of “anti-YouTube”, as well as being an online video platform Rumble expanded into cloud services and web hosting.  In the vibrant US ecosystem of ideas (and such), Rumble is interesting in that while also carrying non-controversial content, it’s noted as one of the native environments of conservative users from libertarians to the “lunar right”, thus the oft-used descriptor “alt-tech”.  Rumble hosts Donald Trump’s (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) Truth Social media platform which has a user base slanted towards “alt-this & that” although to some inherently it’s evil because much of its underlying code is in Java.

The Velvet Underground and Nico

Link Wray’s (1929-2005) 1958 instrumental recording Rumble is mentioned as a seminal influence by many who were later influential in some of the most notable forks of post-war popular music including punk, heavy-metal, death-metal, glam-rock, art-rock, proto-punk, psychedelic-rock, avant-pop and the various strains of experimental and the gothic.  Wray’s release of Rumble as a single also gained a unique distinction in that it remains the only instrumental piece ever banned from radio in the United States on purely “musical” grounds, the stations (apparently in some parts “prevailed upon” by the authorities) finding its power chords just too menacing for youth to resist.  It wasn't thought it would “give them ideas” in the political sense (many things banned for that fear) but because the “threatening” sound and title was deemed likely to incite juvenile delinquency and gang violence.  “Rumble” was in the 1950s youth slang for fights between gangs, thus the concern the song might be picked up as a kind of anthem and exacerbate the problems of gang culture by glorifying the phenomenon which had already been the centre of a "moral panic".  There is a science to deconstructing the relationship between musical techniques and the feelings induced in people and the consensus was the use of power chords, distortion, and feedback (then radically different from mainstream pop tunes) was “raw, dark and ominous”, even without lyrics; it’s never difficult to sell nihilism to teenagers.  Like many bans, the action heightened its appeal, cementing its status as an anthem of discontented youth and, on sale in most record stores, sales were strong.

The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967).

Lou Reed (1942-2013) said he spent days listening to Rumble before joining with John Cale (b 1942) in New York in 1964 to form The Velvet Underground.  Their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, included German-born model Nico (1938-1988) and was, like their subsequent releases, a critical and commercial failure but within twenty years, the view had changed, their work now regarded among the most important and influential of the era, critics noting (with only some exaggeration): "Not many bought the Velvet Underground's records but most of those who did formed a band and headed to a garage."  The Velvet Underground’s output built on the proto heavy-metal motifs from Rumble with experimental performances and was noted especially for its controversial lyrical content including drug abuse, prostitution, sado-masochism and sexual deviancy.  However, despite this and the often nihilistic tone, in the decade since Rumble, the counter-culture had changed not just pop music but also America: The Velvet Underground was never banned from radio.

Rumble seat in 1937 Packard Twelve Series 1507 2/4-passenger coupé.  The most expensive of Packard's 1937 line-up, the Twelve was powered by a 473 cubic-inch (7.7 litre) 67^o V12 rated at 175 horsepower at 3,200 RPM.  It was best year for the Packard Twelve, sales reaching 1,300 units.  The marque's other distinction in the era was the big Packard limousines were the favorite car of comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), a fair judge or machinery.

The rumble seat was also known as a dicky (also as dickie & dickey) seat in the UK while the colloquial “mother-in-law seat” was at least trans-Atlantic and probably global.  It was an upholstered bench seat mounted at the rear of a coach, carriage or early motorcar and as the car industry evolved and coachwork became more elaborate, increasingly they folded into the body.  The size varied but generally they were designed to accommodate one or two adults although the photographic evidence suggests they could be used also to seat half-a-dozen or more children (the seat belt era decades away).  Why it was called a dicky seat is unknown (the word dates from 1801 and most speculation is in some way related to the English class system) but when fitted on horse-drawn carriages it was always understood to mean "a boot (box or receptacle covered with leather at either end of a coach, the use based on the footwear) with a seat above it for servants".  On European phaetons, a similar fixture was the “spider”, a small single seat or bench for the use of a groom or footman, the name based on the spindly supports which called to mind an arachnid’s legs.  The spider name would later be re-purposed on a similar basis to describe open vehicles and use persists to this day, Italians and others sometimes preferring spyder.  They were sometimes also called jump-seats, the idea being they were used by servants or slaves who were required to “jump off” at their master’s command and the term “jump seat” was later used for the folding seats in long-wheelbase limousines although many coach-builders preferred “occasional seats”.

Rumble seat in 1949 Triumph 2000 Roadster.  The unusual (and doubtless welcome) split-screen was a post-war innovation, the idea recalling the twin-screen phaetons of the inter-war years.  Had they been aware of the things, many passengers in the back seats of convertibles (at highway speeds it was a bad hair day) would have longed for the return of the dual-cowl phaetons.  

The US use of “rumble seat” comes from the horse & buggy age so obviously predates any rumble from an engine’s exhaust system and it’s thought the idea of the rumble was literally the noise and vibration experienced by those compelled to sit above a live axle with 40 inch (1 metre-odd) steel rims on wooden-spoked wheels, sometimes with no suspension system.  When such an arrangement was pulled along rough, rutted roads by several galloping horses, even a short journey could be a jarring experience.  The rumble seat actually didn’t appear on many early cars because the engines lacked power so weight had to be restricted, seating typically limited to one or two; they again became a thing only as machines grew larger and bodywork was fitted.  Those in a rumble seat were exposed to the elements which could be most pleasant but not always and they enjoyed only the slightest protection afforded by the regular passenger compartment’s top & windscreen.  Ford actually offered the option of a folding top with side curtains for the rumble seats on the Model A (1927-1931) but few were purchased, a similar fate suffered by those produced by third party suppliers.  US production of cars with rumble seats ended in 1939 and the last made in England was the Triumph 1800/2000 Roadster (1946-1949) but pram manufacturers have of late adopted the name to describe a seat which can be clipped onto the frame.  Their distinction between a toddler seat and a rumble seat is that the former comes with the stroller and is slightly bigger, rated to hold 50 lbs (23 KG), while the former can hold up to 35 (16).

1935 MG NA Magnette Allingham 2/4-Seater by Whittingham & Mitchel.  Sometimes described by auction houses as a DHC (drophead coupé), this body style (despite what would come to be called 2+2 seating) really is a true roadster.  The scalloped shape of the front seats' squabs appeared also in the early (3.8 litre version; 1961-1964) Jaguar E-Types (1961-1974) but attractive as they were, few complained when they were replaced by a more prosaic but also more accommodating design.

Although most rumble (or dickie) seats were mounted in an aperture separated from the passenger compartment, in smaller vehicles the additional seat often was integrated but became usable (by people) only when the hinged cover was raised; otherwise, the rear-seat cushion was a “parcel shelf”.  The MG N-Type Magnette (1934-1936) used a 1271 cm³ (78 cubic inch) straight-six and while the combination of that many cylinders and a small displacement sounds curious, the configuration was something of an English tradition and a product of (1) a taxation system based on cylinder bore and (2) the attractive economies of scale and production line rationalization of “adding two cylinders” to existing four-cylinder units to achieve greater, smoother power with the additional benefit of retaining the same tax-rate.  Even after the taxation system was changed, some small-capacity sixes were developed as out-growths of fours.  Despite the additional length of the engine block, many N-type Magnettes were among the few front-engined cars to include a “frunk” (a front trunk (boot)), a small storage compartment which sat between cowl (scuttle) and engine.

Croissant

Croissant (pronounced krwah-sahn (French) or kruh-sahnt (barbarians))

A rich, buttery, often crescent-shaped, roll of leavened dough or puff paste.

1899:  From the French croissant (crescent), present participle of the verb croître (to increase, to grow), from the Middle French croistre, from the Old French creistre derived from the Classical Latin crēscēns & crēscentem, present active infinitive of crēscō (I augment), drawn from the Proto-Italic krēskō. The ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European ḱreh (to grow, become bigger).  Correct pronunciation here.  

The Austrian Pastry

Like some other cultural artefacts thought quintessentially French (French fries invented in Belgium; Nicolas Sarkozy (b 1955; French president 2007-2012) from here and there; the Citroën DS (1955-1975) styled by an Italian) the croissant came from elsewhere, its origins Austrian, the Viennese kipferl a crescent-shaped sweet made plain, with nuts or other fillings.  It varies from the French classic in being denser and less flaky, made with softer dough.  First noted in the thirteenth century at which time, it was thought a “sweet” it was another three-hundred years before it came to be regarded as a morning pastry.  Tastes changed as new techniques of baking evolved and around the turn of the seventeenth century, recipes began to appear in Le Pâtissier François using Pâte feuilletée (puff pastry), these being the first recognisably modern croissants.

Culinary histories include a number of (likely apocryphal) tales of why the croissant adopted a crescent shape.  One suggests it was baked first in Buda to celebrate the defeat of the Ummayyad (the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) was the second of the four major caliphates created after the death of the prophet Muhammad (circa 570-632)) forces by the Franks in the Battle of Tours (732), the shape representing the Islamic crescent moon although more famous is the notion it was designed after the battle of 1683 when the Ottomans were turned back from the gates of Vienna.  A baker, said to have heard the Turks tunneling under the walls of the city as he lit his ovens to bake the morning bread, sounded an alarm, and the defending forces collapsed the tunnel, saving the city.   To celebrate, bread was baked in the shape of the crescent moon of the Turkish flag.

Portrait of Marie Antoinette (1755–1793; Queen of France 1774-1792) (1769), oil on canvas by Joseph Ducreux (1735-1802).

The official title of the portrait was Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria and it was created as the era’s equivalent of a Tinder profile picture, the artist summoned in 1769 to Vienna to paint a pleasing rendering of the young lady the Hapsburg royal court planned to marry off to Louis, Dauphin of France (1754-1973) who would reign as Louis XVI (King of France 1774-1792)).  Tinder profile pictures can be misleading (some pounds and even more years sometimes vanishing) so the work must be considered in that context although she was barely fourteen when she sat so it may be true to the subject.  Ducreux’s portrait was the first glimpse the prince had of his intended bride and it must have been pleasing enough for him metaphorically to "swipe right" and the marriage lasted until the pair were executed with the blade of the guillotine.  As a reward, Ducreux was raised to the nobility as a seigneur de la baronnie (lord of the barony, the grade of of baron granted to roturiers (commoners)) and appointed premier peintre de la reine (First Painter to the Queen), outliving the royal couple.

A more romantic tale attributes the pastry to Marie Antoinette, who, as an Austrian, preferred the food of her homeland to that of the French court and, at state dinners, would sneak off to enjoy pastries and coffee.  There is no documentary evidence for her having re-christened the kipferl as the croissant but the story is she so missed what she knew as kipfel (German for crescent) that she commanded the royal baker to clone the treat.  More prosaic, but actually verified by historical evidence, is that August Zang (1807-1888), a retired Austrian artillery officer founded a Viennese Bakery in Paris in 1839 and most food historians agree he is the one most likely to have introduced the kipfel to France, a pastry that later inspired French bakers to create crescents of their own.  The first mention of the croissant in French is in French chemist Anselme Payen’s (1795-1871) Des Substances alimentaires (1853), published long after Marie-Antoinette’s time in court, the first known printed recipe, using the name, appearing in Swiss chef Joseph Favre’s (1849-1903) Dictionnaire universel de cuisine (1905) although even that was a more dense creation than the puffy thing known today.

Once were croissants: 1967 Mercedes-Benz 600 (with "jam rolls", left), 1969 Mercedes-Benz 600 (with "croissants" (better known as "rabbits ears"), centre) and 1990 Mercedes-Benz 560 SEL (with boring "headrests", right).

Mercedes-Benz introduced their Kopfstütze (literally “head support” although in the factory’s technical documents the design project was the Kopfstützensystem (head restraint system)) when the 600 (W100, 1963-1981) was displayed at the 1963 Frankfurt Motor Show, the early cars having only a rear-pair as standard equipment (there was an expectation many 600s would be chauffeur-driven) with the front units optional but the hand-built 600 could be ordered with one, two, three or four Kopfstützen (or even none although none seem to have be so-configred ordered).  In 1969 the design was updated and over three weeks the new type was phased in for the models then in production.  While a totally new design (one cognizant of the US safety regulations which had mandated them for the front seats of passenger vehicles) with a different internal structure and mounting assembly, the most distinctive aspect was the raised sides which some compared to the “pagoda” roof then in use on the W113 (230, 250 & 280 SL, 1963-1971) roadster but this was coincidental.  In the early press reports the shapes were described with culinary references, the previous versions said to resemble a Biskuitrolle mit Marmelade (jam filled sponge roll) while the new generation was more like a croissant.  In the English-speaking world, neither term caught on, the older style was called something like “older style” while the new came to be known as “rabbits ears” which was much more charming.  Uncharmed, the humorless types at the factory continued to call them teilt (split) or offener Rahmen (open-frame).  The “rabbits ears” were phased out in 1979 although the low volume 600 retained them (along with the archaic rear swing-axles!) until the last was built in 1981.  The design introduced in 1979 seems never to have been compared to any kind of food and it reverted to lateral symmetry although the structure was noticeably more vertiginous.

Petit-déjeuner à Paris: café; croissant; Gauloises.

In 2025, to enjoy this pleasure began to demand a little more planning after the French government banned the smoking of cigarettes in all outdoor areas where children can be present (US$130 on-the-spot fine).  Vaping was still allowed (!) so there was that and terrasses (the outdoor areas of coffee shops bars) were exempt.  It's good Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) & Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) didn't live to see this day. 

Although the famous shape is much admired, for purists, the choice is always the un-curved croissant au beurre, (butter croissant), the more eye-catching crescents being usually the ordinaires, made with margarine.  The taste in the English-speaking world for things like ham-and-cheese croissants is regarded by the French as proof of Anglo-Saxon barbarism although they will tolerate a sparse drizzle of chocolate if it’s for children and food critics reluctantly concede the almond croissant (with a frangipane filling, topped with slivered almonds and a dusting of powdered sugar) is “…enjoyed by younger women”.  Generally though, the French stick to the classics, eschewing even butter, a croissant being best enjoyed unadorned and taken with a strong black coffee and while some will insist this should be accompanied with a Gitanes, that is optional.

The cube croissant, an Instagram favorite.

Although much focused upon, the shape of a croissant of course becomes less relevant when eaten when the experience becomes one of taste and texture.  For that reason the pastry used has long attracted those chefs for whom food offers architectural possibilities and while for more than a century one-offs have been created for competition and special event, in recent years the phenomenon of social media has been a design stimulant, Instagram, TikTok etc fuelling a culinary arms race and patisseries have built (sometimes short-lived) product lines in response to viral videos.  Fillings have of course been a feature but it’s the shapes which have been most eye-catching (and by extension click-catching which is the point for the content providers). There have been “croissants” in the shape of spheres, discs, pyramids, spirals, wedges and cubes, the last among the more amusing with chefs referencing objects and concepts such as dice, cubist art and, of course, the Rubik’s Cube.  Many have been just a moment while some have for a while trended.

Dominique Ansel's Cronut, stacked and sliced.

Some have endured for longer such as the Cronut (the portmanteau’s construct being cro(issant) + (dough)nut) and so serious was New York based French pastry chef Dominique Ansel (b 1978) that in 2013 he trademarked his creation.  In the familiar shape of a doughnut, the composition was described as “a croissant-like pastry with a filling of flavored cream and fried in grapeseed oil.”  Interviewed by Murdoch tabloid the New York Post, the chef revealed it took “two months of R&D (research & development)” before the Cronut was perfected and the effort was clearly worthwhile because after being released in his eponymous bakery in Manhattan’s SoHo neighbourhood, the city’s food bloggers (a numerous and competitive population) responded and within days photographs circulated of dozens waiting for opening time, a reaction which prompted the application to the US Patent and Trademark Office.  In the way of such things, around the planet “clones”, “tributes”, “knock-offs”, “imitations”, “rip-offs” (the descriptions as varied as the slight changes in the recipes introduced presumably to fend off a C&D (cease and desist letter)) soon appeared.  Predictably, some were called “Doughssants” (the Germanic eszett a nice touch) although others were less derivative.

New York Post, August 16 2022.

Monsieur Ansel in 2015 released Dominique Ansel: The Secret Recipes, a cookbook which included the Cronut recipe and the thing in its authentic form was clearly for the obsessives, the instructions noting making one or a batch was a three-day process.  In its review of the year, Time magazine nominated the Cronut as one of the “best inventions of 2013”, prompting one cultural commentator (another species which proliferates in New York City) to observe the decadence of the West had reached the point the breakdown of society was close.  There may have been something in the idea the new “Visigoths at the Gates of Rome” were actually pastry chefs because in the wake of the Cronut the city was soon flooded with all sorts of novel sugary treats, mostly elaborations of croissants, doughnuts and, it being NYC, bagels.  By 2022 the New York Post was prepared to proclaim: “Move over cronuts! NYC's hot new baked good is the Suprême”, the defenestrator from Noho’s Lafayette Grand Café and revealed to be a “unique circular croissant filled with pastry crème and topped with ganache and crushed up cookies.”  Again of the Instagram & TikTok age, queues were reported even though at a unit cost of US$8.50 it was two dollars more expensive than a Cronut, the price of which had increased fairly modestly since 2013 when it debuted at US$5.00.

All the recent variations on the croissant are built on the theme chefs have for centuries understood is the easy path to popularity: FSS; add fat, salt & sugar, the substances mankind has for millennia sought.  Once it took much effort (and often some risk) to find these things but now they’re conveniently packaged and widely available at prices which, although subject to political and economic forces, remain by historic standards very cheap.  Often, we don’t even need to seek out the packages because so much of the preparation and distribution of food has been outsourced to specialists, mostly industrial concerns but the artisans persist in niches.  That’s certainly true of the croissant, few making their own whether basic or embellished and one of the latest of the croissant crazes is FSS writ large: the crookie.

Miss Sina's crookie (without added topping or powered sugar).

A crookie is a croissant stuffed with chocolate chip cookie dough and its very existence will be thought particularly shameful by some Parisian purists because it was first sold in December 2023 by the Boulangerie Louvard, located on Rue de Châteaudun in Paris’s 9^th arrondissement which, in an Instragram post announced the arrival: “Our pure butter croissant, awarded the seventh best croissant in the Île-de-France region in 2022, is made every morning with a 24-hour fermented milk sourdough and layered with Charente butter.  For our cookie dough, we use one of the best and purest chocolates in the world, from @xoco.gourmet.”  Offered originally in a test batch to test the market, the boulangerie soon announced “The concept was well received, so we're keeping it.  Available every day in-store!”

Unlike a Cronut which (at least in its pure form) demands three days to make, the charm of the crookie is its elegant simplicity and Instagrammers quickly deconstructed and posted the instructions:

(1) With a serrated knife, cut open a croissant lengthwise, leaving a “hinge” at the back.

(2) Add 2-3 tablespoons of your chocolate chip cookie dough (from a packet or home-made).

(3) Close the two sections of croissant wholly encasing the dough.

(4) When the dough is almost cooked (time will vary according to oven and the volume of dough but it takes only a few minutes), remove from oven.

(5) Add more cookie dough to the top of croissant and return to the oven for final bake.

(6) When the outside is crispy and the centre gooey, remove from oven and top with a dusting of powdered sugar.

Some crookie critics don't recommend either adding the second lashing of dough or the powered sugar because they tend to "overwhelm" the croissant and limit the surface area, thereby denying the dish some of the essential crispiness.  

The croissant in fashion

Louis Vuitton Loop (part number M81098).  Created by Nicolas Ghesquière (b 1971) for the Cruise 2022 Collection, the Loop is described as a "half-moon baguette" and was inspired by the earlier Croissant bag, the original a less fussy design but the details in the new reflect modern consumer preference.

Rendered by Vovsoft as cartoon character: a brunette Lindsay Lohan in croissant T-shirt.

While a handbag lends itself well to the shape of a crescent, it does inherently limit the efficiency of space utilization but this aspect is often not a primary goal in the upper reaches of the market.  With garments however, although actually a common component because the shape makes all sorts of engineering possible such as the underwire of the bra or other constructions where any sort of cantilever effect is demanded, it’s usually just an element rather than a design motif.  As a playful touch, a distinctive crescent moon or croissant might appear on a T-shirt or scarf but it’s rare to see a whole garment pursue the theme although they have appeared on the catwalks where they attract the usual mix of admiration and derision.   

Sarah Jessica Parker (b 1965) in "croissant dress".

Sometimes though, such things escape the catwalk.  In 2022 the actor Sarah Jessica Parker appeared in Home Box Office's (HBO) And Just Like That, a spin-off (2021-2022) of the Sex and the City TV series (1998-2024), wearing an orange Valentino couture gown from the house’s spring/summer 2019 collection.  It recalled a large croissant, the piece chosen presumably because the scene was set in Paris although it must have been thought the viewers needed the verisimilitude laid on with a trowel because also prominent was a handbag in the shape of the Eifel Tower.  A gift to the meme-makers, admiration for the dress was restrained.