Literary notes about gamester (AI summary)
The term "gamester" in literature has been employed to denote individuals engaged in gambling, often with a negative or satirical overtone. In Alexandre Dumas's work, for example, it appears as a descriptor for someone who maintains a respectable façade while participating in games of chance [1, 2]. In Alexander Pope’s verses, the word contrasts with decorum and merit, suggesting a sense of disrepute when one is associated with such characters [3]. Ben Jonson, throughout his play "The Alchemist," uses the term repeatedly—in several instances, his gamesters are caricatures, dismissed and ridiculed for their obsessive behavior [4, 5, 6, 7]. Similarly, Henry Fielding highlights the notorious nature of such characters through depictions of card-playing scandals [8], while even scholarly texts like those by Macdonell and in advanced grammar exercises acknowledge its use to describe a person prone to gambling or, by extension, irresponsible risk-taking [9, 10, 11]. Overall, these examples illustrate that "gamester" has served as a culturally loaded term, reflecting both the moral anxieties and the social stigmas surrounding gambling in different historical and literary contexts.
- To speak its language tolerably, to make a good appearance, to be a good gamester, and to pay in cash.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - Never did a gamester, whose whole fortune is staked on one cast of the die, experience the anguish which Edmond felt in his paroxysms of hope.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - Whose table, wit or modest merit share, Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or play’r?
— from An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope - Yes, and blow up gamester after gamester, As they do crackers in a puppet-play.
— from The Alchemist by Ben Jonson - SIR EPICURE MAMMON, a Knight. PERTINAX SURLY, a Gamester.
— from The Alchemist by Ben Jonson - Yes, and blow up gamester after gamester, As they do crackers in a puppet-play.
— from The Alchemist by Ben Jonson - Well, I must not lose my wary gamester yonder.
— from The Alchemist by Ben Jonson - When I entered the room, I found him sitting up in his bed at cards with a notorious gamester.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding - Duryodhana’s jealousy being aroused, he resolved to ruin his cousins, with the aid of his uncle Çakuni, a skilful gamester.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell - Keep a gamester from the dice and a good student from his book.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by Frank Edgar Farley and George Lyman Kittredge - He may apprentice his son to a gamester or rum-seller, and thus cancel his debts of honor .
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I
