Patent

Patent (pronounced pat-nt or peyt-nt)

(1) The exclusive right, granted by a government to an inventor (or owner of the invention) to manufacture, use or sell an invention for a certain length of time.

(2) An invention or process protected by an exclusive right to manufacture, use, or sell it.

(3) An official document conferring on the inventor the exclusive right to manufacture, use, or sell an invention; letters patent.

(4) Protected by an exclusive right given to an inventor to manufacture, use, or sell an invention; patented; the holding of an exclusive right to manufacture, use, or sell an invention.

(5) Relating to, concerned with, or dealing with the granting of exclusive rights to sell or manufacture something, especially inventions (ie the matter of “patent law” dealt with by a “patent attorney”.

(6) Of or pertaining to a right, privilege etc conferred by a patent.

(7) To take out a patent on; obtain the exclusive rights to (an invention, process, etc) by securing a patent.

(8) In US law, the instrument with which by which the federal government conveys a legal title in fee-simple (freehold) to public land.

(9) An ellipsis of patent leather (a varnished, high-gloss leather used in fashion for shoes, handbags, coats and such).

(10) As patent leather, a hide treated in a way which results in a very shiny surface.

(11) Of plate glass, ground and polished on both sides,

(12) In pharmaceuticals, (of a medication) sold without a prescription and usually protected by an exclusive legal right to manufacture (described often as “patent remedies” or “patent drugs”).

(13) In medicine, (of a duct or passage in the body) open or unobstructed.

(14) In medicine (including veterinary medicine) of an infection, in the phase when the organism causing it can be detected by clinical tests.

(15) In phonetics, open, in various degrees, to the passage of the breath stream.

(16) In metallurgy to heat a metal above a transformation temperature and then quench (cool) it in preparation for cold-drawing, wire pulling etc.

(17) In gambling, the combination of seven bets on three selections, offering a return even if only one bet comes in.

(18) In baking (of flour), fine, and consisting mostly of the inner part of the endosperm of the grain from which it is milled.

(19) In botany (and sometimes in horticulture and agriculture generally), expanded or spreading.

(20) Lying open; not enclosed or shut in (often as “a patent field” and applied also to open doorways, passages and such.

(21) Readily open to notice or observation; evident unconcealed, conspicuous, palpable, clear (usually in the phrase “patently obvious”).

(22) To originate and establish as one's own.

(23) A characteristic or quality that one possesses; in particular (hyperbolic) as if exclusively; a monopoly (often in the form “got a patent on”).

(24) An official document granting a right (the significance of the "patent" element in "letters patent" being it indicated the document was openly published an accessible to all (ie in the sense of the Latin patēns).

(25) Any right granted by such a document.

1250–1300: As an adjective, patent was from the Middle English patent, from the Latin patent-, stem of patēns (open, standing open), present participle of patēre (to stand open, lie open).  The Middle English noun patent (document granting an office, property, right, title, etc.; document granting permission, licence; papal indulgence, pardon) was either a clipping of “letters patent”, a translation of the Medieval Latin littera patēns or litterae patentēs (open letters) or was directly from the Anglo-Norman and Middle French patente (which endures in modern French as patent) or a clipping of the Anglo-Norman lettres patentes, Middle French lettres patentes, lettre patente and Old French patentes lettres (document granting an office, privilege, right, etc or making a decree).  The adjective patent (granting a right, privilege, or power) emerged late in the fourteenth century while the sense of “open to view, plain, clear” was in use by at least 1505 and use as an adverb dates from the mid fifteenth century.

The verb dates from the 1670s and was derived from the Middle English nouns patent & patente (wide open; clear, unobstructed; unlimited; of a document: available for public inspection), from the Anglo-Norman & Middle French patent and directly from their etymon the Latin patēns (open; accessible, passable; evident, manifest; exposed, vulnerable), the present active participle of pateō (to be open; to be accessible, attainable; to be exposed, vulnerable; of frontiers or land: to extent, increase), from the primitive Indo-European pete or peth- (to spread out; to fly).  The verb originally was used in the sense of “to obtain right to land" by securing letters patent” while the meaning “obtain a copyright to an invention” was in use by at least 1822, building on the earlier meaning (recorded in 1789) “obtain an exclusive right or monopoly” a privilege granted by the Crown by the issue of letters patent.  Patents issued thus (for a licence granted by a government covering a new and useful invention, conferring exclusive right to exploit the invention for a specified term of years) came into use in the 1580s.  Patent is a noun, verb & adjective, patenter, patentor, patentee, patentholder, patency, patentability, impatency, patency & prepatent are nouns, patented is a verb & adjective, patenting is a verb, patentable, antipatent, patentlike, patentfree, patentless & impatent are adjectives and patentably & patently are adverbs; the noun plural is patents.  The derived forms (nonpatentable, unpatentability, repatent etc) are used as required.

Alice Geek Teck^TM strapless bra.  The product was released with Geek Teck^TM still in its "Pat. pend" phase.

The Alice Geek Teck^TM strapless bra was released in 2015, its novelty being the use of “Patent-Pending Geek Teck^TM” panels which exploited the Van Der Waals forces (intermolecular electrostatic attractive forces) created by their silicone construction with microscopic hair-like structures known as setae (analogous to those found on the feet of geckos, famous for their ability to attach themselves (upside-down) to ceilings, using, if need be, only one foot.  The theory was the Geek Teck^TM panels would “stick to” the wearer’s skin thereby enhancing the most important design imperative of the strapless bra: staying up.  US patent 9,402,424 was assigned to Kellie K apparel LLC but it seems not to have succeeded which is unfortunate because there’s a gap in the market for a genuinely gravity-defying strapless bra.

The familiar term “patent pending” (often seen stamped on products in the abbreviated form “Pat. pend.”) is used to indicate a patent application has been filed but has not yet been granted.  The significance of the use is: (1) it can act to deters competitors, signalling to potential “copycats” that patent protection is expected to be granted, thus discouraging attempts at imitation, (2) it’s thought to lend credibility to a product, thus conferring a marketing advantage, (3) it can make a product more attractive to potential investors because a patent grants years of protection from competition and (4) the existence of the label can in subsequent infringement proceedings lead to a higher award of damages because it can be used as evidence the other party did not act “in good faith”.  However, the mere existence of a “Pat. Pend.” label does not provide legal protection and others may still (at their own risk) copy and sell the product, something of significance because patent applications can take months (or even years in complex or contested matters) to process and there have been cases where a company violating a subsequently granted patent has “come and gone” (taking with them their profits) by the time a patent is granted.  Importantly, a manufacturer cannot mark something as “Pat. Pend.” just to try to ward of potential competition and in most jurisdictions it’s unlawful to use the term if no application has been filed.  In legal slang, “patentees” and “patentspeak” are terms referring to the legal and technical jargon used in the handling of patents while “patentometrics” is the statistical analysis of patents.

In law, “patent troll” is an informal term used (usually disparagingly) to describe an individual or company which acquires and enforces patents in an aggressive and opportunistic manner, often with no intention of producing, marketing, or promoting the subjects of the patents.  The term is based on the similar concepts “trademark troll” and “copyright troll” and in more formal use a “patent troll” is usually styled a “patent assertion entity” or a “non-practicing entity”.  The seemingly curious business model (making money by neither producing or selling stuff to which one holds the exclusive patent) works usually through litigation or (more typically) the threat of litigation, exploiting the cost–benefit imbalance between contesting versus settling a lawsuit.  Sometimes speculatively but usually because potential targets have been identified, patent trolls will (1) buy older or unused patents from bankrupt companies, small inventors or concerns which have no further use for them or (2) file new patents that are broad or vague, something especially prevalent in highly technical fields where change is rapid (anything IT related the classic example) and specialists can amass hundreds or even thousands of patents, some unambiguously enforceable, some with enough of a hint of validity to be a creditable threat.  Thus equipped, patent trolls search for possible targets for litigation, the ideal victims being (1) companies so big they might settle a claim for what is (for them) a small sum (though most lucrative for the trolls who may have done little more than send a C&D (cease & desist letter)) or (2) smaller companies which cannot afford the cost of litigation (they might settle for less but it’s still a profit to the troll) because even if a case successfully is defended, the cost of doing so can, in the US, run to millions.

What that means is the troll’s business model has three potential revenue streams: (1) licensing fees, (2) one-off settlements and (3) court-awarded damages (in the rare instances in which a case goes to trial).  With no costs associated with R&D (research & development), product testing, production or marketing, a troll’s overheads are comparatively minimal and limited usually to legal and administrative fees.  Highly developed practitioners of trolling also use elaborate company structures made up of trusts, shelf companies and such, often in trans-national form, the jurisdictions chosen on the basis of which is most advantageous for a certain purpose (secrecy, taxation arrangements, limitations of liability etc); all these layers can protect a troll’s assets from counter-claims.  Patents are also “just another asset” and once assembled become a portfolio which can be leveraged as investment vehicles, something done often by the device of bundling them in securitized form, sometimes S&Ded (sliced & diced) for sale to investors, not as individual patents but as a percentage of the whole.

Some products become known as “patent something” because they gained their original uniqueness by virtue of patent protection.  In nautical use, a “patent log” is a mechanical device dragged from the stern of the vessel and used to indicate the craft’s speed through the water; most consist of a rotator (ie on the principle of a propeller) and reading unit, connected by a stiff line (usually covered with a flexible, protective skin).  Even in the age of electronic sensors, patent logs remain in use because they are simple, reliable, low maintenance units which require no external power source, the rotator spinning as it proceeds astern, the rotations of the connecting line registered by a wheel works and dial mounted to the vessel's rail.  The earliest versions of mechanical logs had the counting attached directly to the rotator, meaning the apparatus had to be hauled aboard to “take a reading” so the US innovation in the 1860s of a connecting line (spinning a la the mechanical speedometers which later would appear in automobiles) was an advance which made the thing a “real time” device.

An 1881 Patent Log by Thomas Walker, on display at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

For many reasons, to know a vessel’s true speed was an important part of seamanship and “log” element in the name came from the old way sailors determined speed.  Since the sixteenth century, the technique had been to attach knotted rope to a wooden log which was heaved overboard and, the knots being tied at regular intervals, the number of knots counted off over a short period indicating the speed.  From this came the standard unit of speed at sea being the “knot” (one knot being equal to one nautical mile per hour and few things annoy old salts more than the expression “knots per hour”).  The log method obviously was inexact because of the variables to which it was subject so the mechanical device was a great advance.  A company founded by Thomas Walker (1805-1873) as a nautical instrument maker based in Birmingham (in England about as far as one can get from the sea) received a patent for a mechanical log in 1878, sometime before one was granted by the US patent office although that application was submitted in 1877.

Lindsay Lohan during blonde phase in Lanvin patent leather coat, New York City, May 2007.

“Patent leather” describes a hide which has been coated with a process using a substance which produces a high-gloss finish, so shiny as to be described as “like a polished, glazed ceramic”.  In fashion, the attraction of patent leather is that despite the brittle appearance, it retains all the flexible qualities and durability of leather while being almost waterproof (although intrusion can of course be possible at the seams).  Most associated with shoes, boots, handbags and coats, the original patent leather seems exclusively to have been produced in black but a wide range of colors have long been available so the material quickly became a favourite of designers.  In the late 1700s when patent leather first became commercially available in England, the lacquer coating was linseed oil-based but what revolutionized things and made mass-production more viable was the invention by metallurgist Alexander Parkes (1813–1890) of Parkesine, the first man-made “plastic”; it was one of his dozens of patented inventions, thus the name “patent leather”.  It was Parkesine which enabled the development of multi-colored patent leathers and because the product literally is “leather with a synthetic coating”, it’s one of the natural products most easily emulated (in appearance) by a plastic alternative although the imitations never possessed the same qualities.  Interestingly, many of the various processes used early in the nineteenth century to patent leather were never patented.

The former Court of Star Chamber (1836), drawing by unknown artist.

There were also “patent theatres”.  In England letters patent were for years a standard device in the administration of censorship, something that attracted increased interest from governments as soon as the printing presses began to operate at scale.  The printing press was one of the great creations of civilization but their availability appalled priest and politician alike because the last thing they wanted was “the common people” being given ideas (which they knew quickly would become heresy and sedition).  Under Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) proclamations against heretical and seditious publications soon appeared and in 1538 a statute was added declaring books must be licensed for printing by the Privy Council or other royal nominees.  What this did was create a flourishing black market for works produced by illegal presses and this battle between censorship and “underground” publications would for some 450 years characterize the way things were done in England.  One critical development came in 1557 when the Stationers' Company was granted a “charter of incorporation” which provided that only members of the company (or others holding a special patent) were allowed to print any work for sale in the kingdom.  In 1586, the ever imaginative Court of Star Chamber devised an ordinance which directed that no printing press might be set up in any place other than London (with the exception of one each for the university towns Oxford and Cambridge) and rigorously, the Star Chamber enforced this law with their usual zeal and although the court was in 1641 abolished by the Long Parliament, governments didn’t lose their fondness for censorship; under the Commonwealth restrictions were tightened with all “unofficial periodicals” (a move aimed at troublesome “newsletters, precursors to modern magazines and newspapers) banned and while the Rump Parliament of 1659 permitted “licensed newsbooks”, severely their issue was restricted.

During the Restoration period neither the government’s strategy or tactics much changed and material deemed libellous or offensive (values which cast a wide net) to the state or Church could see offenders fined, imprisoned pilloried or hanged (the last invoked if the offence was judged “high treason”).  By the eighteenth century things had somewhat been relaxed but Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was nevertheless compelled to flee to France when his book Rights of Man (1791) was declared “subversive” and a warrant issued for his arrest; even an article condemning the use of disciplinary flogging by the military could attract a fine of Stg£1,000 (then a small fortune) and two years in prison.  Being popular entertainment and accessible to even the illiterate, censorship of the theatre was important and the licensing of individual plays seems to have begun as early as the 1640s with an inspired piece of legislation in 1572 deeming all players (actors) “rogues and vagabonds” unless they belonged to (1) a baron of the realm, (2) somebody of higher rank or (3) were licensed by two justices.

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, one of the original two "patent theatres".

Later, London’s theatrical companies worked under royal patents created by issue of the appropriate letters patent.  Curiously, governments, while much concerned with the preservation of political & ecclesiastical power, had rather neglected public morality but the Puritans were appalled by even the idea of the theatre.  Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658; Lord Protector of the Commonwealth 1653-1658) and his ilk thought the stage a place of immorality and in 1542 the Long Parliament prohibited all dramatic performances.  Inevitably, with theatres closed, an underground movement arose, the best documented of which were the Droll-Humours.  At or after the Restoration, letters patent were issued so companies could be formed and in 1662 these conferred on the recipients the exclusive right to present, in public, plays in public within the City of Westminster.  It proved a lucrative business and after the deaths of the original holders of the rights, lawyers began their squabble over to whom or what entity the letters patent should be conveyed; the disputes dragged on for some time before ultimately they were settled on the Covent Garden and Drury Lane theatres.  These enduring institutions thus came to be called the “patent theatres” and what the letters called “drama” was confined to the patent theatres.  However, nobody had bothered to define exactly what constituted “legitimate drama” and that remained a source of dispute among critics and lawyers, resolved only when the Theatres Act (1843) rendered the original letters patent inoperative.

Drawing of patent hammer, attached to Mr Richard’s application to the US Patent Office. the image is from the Trowel and Masonry Tool Collector Resource.

In stone-masonry, a “patent hammer” is a specialized hammer used by stonemasons for dressing stone, the head having two faces formed by a number (at least 2 but usually with 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 “cuts” (blades) broad, thin chisels bolted side by side); the bolts could be loosened, allowing the blades to be removed to be re-sharpening or replaced.  The head of a patent hammer was heavy and the tool was used for finishing granite or the harder grades of sandstone and the choice of which to use was dictated by nature of the stone and the finish desired.  Historically, the most commonly used jaw opening was ⅞ inch but other graduations between ½ and one inch were widely produced and in the jargon of the trade, the number of cuts per nominal inch became the nominal description (eg an “8-cut finish”).  Essentially a time-saving device, use of a patent hammer allowed a stonemason to render a grooved surface more quickly and with more consistency than when using a single hand chisel.  The tools were in various places known also as the “patent bush hammer” “Scotia hammer” and “patent Scotia hammer” although, as a general principle, the Scotias usually were lighter and featured smaller jaw openings.  The tool gained its name from the patent granted in 1828 to Joseph Richards (1784-1848) of Braintree, Massachusetts and although the evidence suggests similar devices had for centuries been in use (presumably crated ad-hoc by stonemasons or tool-makers), this issue of the 1828 patent triggered an onrush of patent applications for stonemasonry tools and the US Patent Office (which classed them as “bush hammers” or “mill picks” to distinguish them from other hammers) soon had literally dozens of variants on the books.

In English law, letters patent and royal decrees (now more commonly styled as royal proclamations) are instruments with which the Crown exercises its prerogative powers, but they differ in form, purpose, and legal effect.  Letters patent are formal, written documents issued under the Great Seal, open for public inspection, declaring the monarch’s will in a matter of public record; they are addressed to all subjects, not to an individual or private recipient.  As an administrative device, letters patent are used to confirm rights, titles, offices, or privileges (including creating or conferring peerages or knighthoods) granting corporate charters (universities or city incorporations etc), issuing patents of invention or land grants and appointing public offices of state (governors, judges etc).  As legal devices, they operate as instruments of grant rather than command and unusually, take effect by virtue of being published, not by their delivery, registration or some form of gazetting.  Importantly, they can be subject to judicial challenge and voided if found to have been issued ultra vires (a legal maxim from the from Latin ultra vires (beyond the power) meaning (in this case) held to be beyond the monarch’s lawful prerogative) so although sounding something of an echo of the days of absolute power being exercised from the throne, they do operate within modern constitutional limits.

A royal proclamation is a command or declaration made by the monarch and issued over their signature but almost always drafted by the responsible ministers in government and published in the Gazette.  While a term like “royal proclamation” sounds like it might be used for commands like “off with their heads”, in modern use, typically, they’re invoked to announce or enforce policies, order, or regulations and that this is done under the royal prerogative is merely procedural.  So, while most are prosaic, (the regulation of this and that; announcing public holidays or public ceremonies etc), historically, royal proclamations have declared war and routinely still are the instrument summoning or dissolving parliament.  In the narrow technical sense the royal proclamation operates as an executive command rather than a grant but has a valid force of law only when issued under a lawful prerogative or statutory authority (since the Bill of Rights (1689), proclamations cannot create new offences or change existing law without the consent of both houses of parliament (as modified by the Parliament Acts (1911 & 1949)).

Mr Andrew Mountbatten Windsor (the former Prince Andrew, Duke of York) in the Garter robe he no longer dons (at least not when in public view).  Mr Mountbatten Windsor is the great grandson of King George V.

Because most are procedural, letters patent usually barely register in the public consciousness but, around the world, their use in late 2025 in the matter of Andrew Albert Christian Edward Mountbatten Windsor (b 1960) certainly made headlines.  Mr Mountbatten Windsor once was styled HRH (His Royal Highness) Prince Andrew, Duke of York, KG (Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter), GCVO (Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order) but the controversy about his alleged conduct with certain young women associated with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019) meant that between 2022 and 2025, almost all his many titles gradually were (in one way or another) put into abeyance before his brother Charles III (b 1948; King of the United Kingdom since 2022) issued the letters patent effectively removing all.

Until that point, the gradual nibbling away of Mr Mountbatten Windsor’s array of titles had been an example of inept crisis management with him in 2022 ceasing to be a “HRH” in a “public capacity” but remaining one in his “private capacity”.  That didn’t mean he could use it only in his bedroom but meant it couldn’t be used were he to appear at any “official public event”.  While one being able to call oneself “HRH” only in private (presumably among consenting adults) might sound a bit of a slap on the royal wrist, it is possession of styles and titles which determine one’s place in the “order of precedence”, something of great significance to those who move in certain circles because where one sits on the pecking order determines things like who has to bow or curtsy to whom and whether at events one gets to sit somewhere nice with the dukes & earls or is shunted off into a corner with the provincial mayors and eldest sons of knights.  As a weapon, the removal of the “HRH” has been used against the Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Simpson; 1896–1986), Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997) and the Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle; b 1981).  Although Mr Mountbatten Windsor’s notorious television interview (approved by the palace courtiers against the advice of the media pros) seemed at the time the nadir of the crisis management of the “Andrew problem” (ranking with Boeing’s handing of the 737 Max’s “issues” and Intel’s attempt to “non-handle” the flaws in the original Pentium’s inbuilt math co-processor), the “drip feed” of the way his styles and titles gradually were eroded made things worse still.  As a footnote, the former Prince Andrew is now known as “Andrew Mountbatten Windsor” rather than “Andrew Windsor” because his father (Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021)) was upset his sons wouldn’t bear his name so the “Mountbatten” was added.

Revelations about his alleged conduct continued to emerge and in mid October, 2025, it was announced that following discussions with the king, he would cease to make use of the styles of address to which he was entitled as a duke and twice a knight of the realm (both knighthoods being in orders of chivalry in the personal gift of the sovereign (his mother) with no involvement by government).  That didn’t mean he ceased to be a duke (with subsidiary peerages) or the possessor of two knighthoods in orders of chivalry, just that he would no longer “use them”.  That meant for all public purposes he would revert to what he was by virtue of his birth: plain old “Prince Andrew”.  Had the revelations stopped there, the “fix” might have worked but as fresh accusations continued to appear, not only was the press making trouble but there were suggestions “the Andrew problem” might be discussed on the floor of the House of Commons where members enjoy what’s called “parliamentary privilege” (the right to make even defamatory statements without risk of legal action).  What appeared to be of particular interest to some politicians was Mr Mountbatten Windsor remaining eighth in the line of succession to the British throne (and thus the monarchies of Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada and such).

Accordingly, on 30 October 2025, the palace announced the king would be removing all his brother's styles, titles, and honours.  While technically this does not revoke the peerages, it does mean they are no longer “effective” and thus not affecting the vital order of precedence.  On 3 November, the king issued letters patent stripping Andrew of both the style “HRH” and title “prince”.  That the king can do this by the mere inking of a sheet of vellum is because (1) letters patent are a powerful tool and (2) in 1917 George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936) effectively codified the monarch’s authority in such matters; no involvement by parliament being required.  In 1917 the UK was at war with the German Empire so anti-German sentiment was about and as well as changing the royal family’s name from the obviously Teutonic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, the opportunity was taken for an “agonizing reappraisal” of the domestic structure.

Letters Patent issued by George V, 30 November 1917.  When mention was made to the "Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland", the reference was literally to a big wax seal.

Thus, King George V issued letters patent restricting use of the titles “Prince” & “Princess” and the style “HRH” to certain close relatives of the monarch: (1) the children of the sovereign, (2) the male-line grandchildren of the sovereign (3) and the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales (ie the heir apparent’s eldest son).  Other descendants of the monarch would be styled as children of dukes (Lord or Lady).  In doing this George V wasn’t claiming or asserting a new royal prerogative (it had long been acknowledged) but his issue of the 1917 Letters Patent was the moment it was codified and assumed the force of a formal decree.  That’s why it’s misleading to say the UK doesn’t have a written constitution; it’s just all the bits and pieces don’t appear in one consolidated document al la the US, Australia or the old Soviet Union.  The words of the 1917 Letters Patent were:

“Whitehall, 30^th November, 1917.  The KING has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date the 30th day of November, 1917, to declare that the children of any Sovereign of these Realms and the children of the sons of any such Sovereign and the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales shall have and at all times hold and enjoy the style, title or attribute of Royal Highness with their titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their respective Christian names or with their other titles of honour; and that the grandchildren of the sons of any such Sovereign in the direct male line (save only the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales) shall have and enjoy in all occasions the style and title enjoyed by the children of Dukes of these Our Realms.

And forasmuch as it has become expedient that the usage whereby the style, title or attribute of Royal Highness and of Prince or Princess shall be borne by other descendants of Our said Grandfather of blessed memory shall cease, We do hereby further declare that the said styles, titles or attributes shall not henceforth be borne by such descendants of Our said Grandfather save those above mentioned.”

Legally, “Our said Grandfather” actually referred to Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901) and what the proclamation did was revoke the practice from Victoria’s time where almost all male-line descendants of the monarch were styled as princes or princesses.  Some countries still operate on the Victorian basis and a particular example is Saudi Arabia, a nation where, under their interpretation of the Sharia, kings and princes may enjoy more than the four wives which is the accepted limit in most Islamic nations which permit polygyny.  The royal scions have thus proliferated and if one moves in certain exulted circles, apart from the odd waiter or hairdresser, it can be possible to go through life and never meet a Saudi who is not a prince or princess.  In Saudi, for many reasons, it would be difficult to change the system but in Demark there recently was a cull of princes and princesses (the titles that is) with those who didn’t make the cut reverting to being count and countess of this and that.  For almost a century the 1917 Letters Patent remained the convention followed but  on 31 December 2012, Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) issued letters patent extending both HRH and Prince or Princess status to all the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales:

“Whitehall, 31^st December, 2012.  The QUEEN has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated the 31st day of December 2012 to declare that all the children of the eldest son of The Prince of Wales should have and enjoy the style, title and attribute of Royal Highness with the titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their Christian names or with such other titles of honour.”

What that achieved was a bit of “title creep”.  Under the George V rule, only the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales would have been styled a prince; younger siblings would not have been princes or princesses but rather Lord or Lady Mountbatten-Windsor.  What Elizabeth II’s 2012 Letters Patent did was equalize things so all the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales would be both HRH and princes or princesses; it’s a thoughtful great-grandmother who thinks of a way to avoid sibling rivalry.  There have since been no further general amendments to the 1917 convention although the royal prerogative has been used to grant or remove titles individually, such the letters patent issued granting the titles prince & princess to the Duke of Sussex’s children.

Windsor Castle, September, 2025.

The UK government's state banquet in honor of the visiting Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025), hosted in Windsor Castle in September 2025.  Where one sits on the UK's order of precedence will influence (1) whether one is invited and (2) whether one gets a "good" seat.  Among US presidents, Mr Trump's second state visit was unprecedented.

So, titles and styles are quite a thing in royal families because they operate as a pecking order atop a pecking order.  Despite the frequency with which the claim is made, the British royal family is not wholly averse to change and one change they would be welcome would be things going back to how they were done decades or centuries ago: In 1938, George VI (1895–1952; King of the United Kingdom 1936-1952), being driven through Surry in the company of a US journalist, gestured through the window towards Runnymede, telling his companion: “That’s where the troubles started”.  For the institution of the monarchy, there have since 1215 been many troubles, some quite serious but apart for a brief, aberrant, republican interlude, one royal household or another has remained in place, challenges dealt with as they’ve arisen.  For the royal family, the matter of “the Andrew problem” is not so much what he’s alleged to have done (which could have been handled with the odd wry smile and otherwise never spoken of) but the ghastliness of it becoming public knowledge among “the common people”.  The attraction of “fixing things” by the use of letters patent is it’s quick and (it’s hoped) will mean “the Andrew problem” doesn’t end up being discussed in the House of Commons.  That would be bad enough but once such things start they can get out of hand and if one matter about the royal family is being discussed in parliament, there’s no guarantee it wouldn’t lead to other aspects being questioned.  There are many things about the royal family and their place in the UK’s constitutional apparatus which they’d prefer not be discussed and certainly not in the House of Commons.  As a tactic, the letters patent may well keep the commoners in the Commons at bay but Mr Mountbatten Windsor’s life may yet get worse because various institutions in the US are interested in questioning him in relation to alleged offences committed on US soil and an extradition request is not impossible.

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 & Goggomobil 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 Goggomobil T 250 (left) and 1957 Goggomobil 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 Goggomobil 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.

The last Glas Goggomobil, Dingolfing, Bavaria FRG, 25 June, 1969.

Between 1955 and 1969, much changed in the FRG; to illustrate the point the 1955 Porsche 356A may be compared to the 1969 917.  The little Goggomobil however continued serenely on, the last visually little different from the first and even the larger displacement versions were almost indistinguishable although, over the years, there were incremental improvements including, as early as 1957, a second windscreen wiper and wind-up windows replacing the old sliders.  Structurally, the only significant change came in 1964 when the rear-hinged suicide doors were replaced by the front-hinged units which were by then almost universal.  However, the Goggomobil TL (Transporter, 1956-1965) being a van with sliding doors, continued unaffected.  Had Goggomobil’s range included a van with front-hinged doors, they might have taken the same approach as Fiat did with the contemporary Furgoncino (small van) which was based on the Cinquecento (500, 1957-1975).  The Furgoncino was a variant of the Giardiniera (literally gardener (female form) but used for such vehicles in the sense of “related to the garden” (ie something practical for gardeners and such)).  Because the Giardiniera was listed by the authorities as a commercial vehicle, it was exempt from the requirement to adopt front-hinged doors and thus to the end of production retained the suicide doors.  After the Giardiniera was removed from the Fiat catalogue in 1968, production was taken over by Autobianchi, the last leaving the line in 1977.  

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.