January 18, 2000

agenbite of inwit

Can you shed any light on the meaning of the phrase "agenbit of inwyt"? I've been able to find "inwyt" (or "inwit"), meaning inward knowledge, but have searched several dictionaries in vain for the term "agenbit." Help, please?

Thanks for writing to us about this phrase, but I'm wondering where you encountered it. It's not in the average person's vocabulary!

Agenbite of inwit is an archaic phrase that originated as the title of a French treatise on morality. It was translated into English in 1340 by Dan Michel, a monk at Canterbury. The title (originally spelled "Ayenbite of Inwyt") means 'the remorse of conscience', literally, 'the again-biting of inner wit'. The English word agenbite is a translation of both elements of the Latin verb remordere 'to bite again', the source of English remorse. The English word inwit usually means 'an inner sense of right or wrong', but its more general meaning is 'reason, intellect, understanding, or wisdom'.

The phrase agenbite of inwit has been revived by modern writers. James Joyce used it at least eight times in Ulysses to portray Leopold Bloom's character as being afflicted by the repeated bite or wound of introspection, self-analysis, and self-awareness: "They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit. Conscience....Venus had twisted her lips in prayer. Agenbite of inwit: remorse of conscience. It is an age of exhausted whoredom groping for its god....Agenbite of inwit. Inwit's agenbite. Misery! Misery!"

In the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan discussed the psychic numbness caused by the idolatry of technology: "With the telegraph Western man began a process of putting his nerves outside his body...Since the telegraph we have extended the brains and nerves of man around the globe. The electronic age endures a total uneasiness, as of a man wearing his skull inside and his brain outside. A special property of all social extensions of the body is that they return to plague the inventors in a kind of agenbite of outwit."

And here's a 1972 example from the London Times: "(Malcolm) Muggeridge is haunted...by plastic grass, the possibility that dawn will be photographed as though it were dusk. What agenbite of inwit must seize the old gentleman as they lard him with make-up prior to committing him to the arms of his camera." And another quote: "Very probably Bond fans will be able to turn a blind eye to the bites and agenbites of new-Bond's inwit." (1968, Listener) More recently, the film critic Richard Corliss describes Humbert in the movie Lolita: "The agenbite of inwit gnaws at him, robs him of the malefic majesty that makes screen villains entertaining."

Carol