Literary notes about Anarchy (AI summary)
Literary works employ "anarchy" as a multifaceted term that can denote both literal social disorder and a more abstract philosophical state. In historical narratives, it often describes the collapse of established order, as when revolutionary upheaval or the fall of regimes leaves societies in chaos ([1], [2], [3]). At the same time, some authors invoke the term to critique prevailing power structures or to suggest that disorder can contain the seeds of transformation, blending political critique with a broader cultural metaphor ([4], [5]). In this way, literature uses "anarchy" to challenge boundaries between order and chaos, inviting readers to reconsider the nature of authority and the potential for both ruin and renewal in human affairs ([6], [7], [8], [9], [10]).
- In which however there is this advantage, that, like Anarchy itself, it cannot continue.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - But their conquest of Gaul was followed by ten centuries of anarchy and ignorance.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - In two weeks there were famine and plague, in three weeks war and anarchy.
— from The Marching Morons by C. M. Kornbluth - Adams proclaimed that in the last synthesis, order and anarchy were one, but that the unity was chaos.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams - Idealism led him to philosophic anarchy, and his family threw him off.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London - There, she was told, it was damp; there were bugs, debauchery, anarchy.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Since monkeys first began to chatter in trees, neither man nor beast had ever denied or doubted Multiplicity, Diversity, Complexity, Anarchy, Chaos.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams - You cannot hang this Anarchy; it is like to hang you: you must needs treat with it.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - Anarchy, ugliness, form—are unrelated concepts.
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche - This will unhinge and overturn all polities, and, instead of government and order, leave nothing but anarchy and confusion.
— from Second Treatise of Government by John Locke
