'Valerie Larbaud' (1881- 1957) was an influential French writer of the first part of the 20th century.
"La Duchesse de Langeais" (1834) is the title of a novel by Honore de Balzac. It has been filmed four times, The Duchess of Langeais, Wicked Duchess, La duchesse de Langeais (a TV film), and The Duchess of Langeais (its original title).
"Max and Moritz (A Story of Seven Boyish Pranks)" (1865) is a story written and illustrated by Wilhelm Busch and told entirely in rhyming couplets.
Jean Giraudoux (1882 -1944) was a French novelist and playwright.
Louis Aragon (1897 -1982) was a French poet, novelist and editor, a supporter of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.
Paul Éluard (the pen name of Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (1895 - 1952)) was a French poet who was a co-founder of the surrealist movement.
Richard Wagner was a German composer known primarily for his operas.
Ford Taunus was the name given to a range of cars sold by Ford in Germany and other countries. The name, Taunus, comes from the Taunus mountain range in Germany. This car model was made from 1939 until 1994.
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin ('Friedrich Holderlin') was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism.
The Girl likens her departure to that of Arthur Gordon Pym. This is a reference to the book, 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket', the only complete novel written by American writer Edgar Allan Poe.
The quote from Charles Baudelaire, "The wet suns/ of those blurry skies/ to my mind have the same charm/ so mysterious/ as your treacherous eyes/ shining through their tears", is from L'Invitation au Voyage.