Teresa Pitt
asked:
The phrase 'The Well of Loneliness' seems to have first appeared in Lady Augusta Gregory's English translation of the haunting 8th-century Irish ballad 'Donal Og' (Young Donal), first published in Ireland the early 1900s. Does anyone know if the phrase has any earlier antecedents? I'm wondering if it has, perhaps, any biblical connotations, but have been unable to find any reference to its origins online.
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Mike Stoten
de are wells in scripture - in the OT and also in the New; where Jesus asks for water from a woman in a strange land. None are mentioned as being wells of loneliness per se although the woman would have been pretty lonely given her antecedents!
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