| Bohemian: Originally, a gypsy or vagabond thought to have migrated to Western Europe from the ancient realm of Bohemia. During the 15th century, these "Bohemians" were prohibited from entering Paris. They were forced to remain outside the gates of the city in St.Denis. Ironically, the modern use of the term is often associated with inhabitants of the Left Bank in Paris. In the opera La Boheme (1896) , for example, Puccini tells the story of four young impoverished students who share a garret on the Left Bank. Another place that has been associated with Bohemians is Greenwich Village in New York City, especially in the 1910's and '20s when such writers, artists and radicals such as Edna St.Vincent Millay, e.e. Cummings and Emma Goldman lived there. A bohemian has come to stand not only for intellectuals and artists and political radicals, but also for any person who lives an unconventional,free-style life in dress,manners and morals. A bohemian would rather starve in an attic than take a 9-to-5 job. He or she feels infinitely superior to the Bohemian's opposite, the bourgeois. ~ Facts on File dictionary of Cultural and Historical Allusions |
| Bourgeois: The term bourgeois refers to a middle-class society with middle-class values and a shopkeeper's mentality. In the Middle Ages the bourgeois were neither the aristocrats nor the peasants; they were, literally, the people of the burg, the town. Concerned mainly with property and acquisition, they could not be romanticized , as the other two classes could be, nor could they successfully aspire to climb into the upper class. They were condemned, even when wealthy to be labeled the "nouveaux riches". This is exquisitely demonstrated in Moliere's play "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" , in which M.Jourdain tries to rise to the position of a gentleman but remains a bourgeois and a boor. "Bourgeois" still has a pejorative connotation. To be labeled a bourgeois is to be accused of worshipping respectability at all costs; to have no aspirations other than a desire for conformity, conventionality, security, money and comfort. ~ Facts on File Dictionary of Cultural and Historical Allusions. |
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