Literary notes about Absent (AI summary)
The term "absent" is employed in literature to convey a range of meanings, from physical non-presence to mental or emotional detachment. It is often used to indicate when a character is not where they are expected to be—whether a master away from home [1, 2, 3] or a leader withdrawn from duty [4]—thus highlighting themes of duty, loss, or separation. At other times, the word underscores a state of mind, revealing a character’s preoccupied or distracted inner life, as seen in depictions of absent-mindedness [5, 6, 7]. In more reflective or philosophical passages, “absent” transcends its literal sense to evoke the idea of intangible or spiritual distance [8, 9], enriching the narrative with layers of emotional and existential meaning. This nuanced usage allows writers to mirror the complexity of human absence and presence in both the physical and metaphoric realms [10, 11].
- We were staying in the country at a gentleman's seat, where it happened that the master was absent for a few days.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. Andersen - This message was brought or read to her in a letter one day, when her mother was from home and her father absent as usual in the City.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - Thus when the Nandi men are away on a foray, nobody at home may pronounce the names of the absent warriors; they must be referred to as birds.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - Unconscious of his danger, the tyrant was absent; withdrawn from the toils of state, in the delicious islands of the Propontis.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - Her expression now is cold, apathetic, and absent-minded, like that of passengers who had to wait too long for a train.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Raskolnikov at once pretended not to have seen him, but to be looking absent-mindedly away, while he watched him out of the corner of his eye.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - He looked at me absent-mindedly, as though trying to remember what we were talking about.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Although I am absent from you in my flesh, yet I am present with you in my spirit.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon by J. B. Lightfoot - But we are confident and have a good will to be absent rather from the body and to be present with the Lord.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - Feng was purposely to absent himself, pretending affairs of great import.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo - For the wives of the Scythians, because their husbands were absent from them for a long time, had associated with the slaves.
— from The History of Herodotus — Volume 1 by Herodotus
