Literary notes about Animate (AI summary)
Writers employ “animate” to imbue characters, objects, and even abstract forces with a sense of life and energy. In some works, the term depicts an inner drive or fervor that enlivens individuals, as when a character’s emotions are said to animate him [1] or when free trade is portrayed as a force that must animate the management of a bank [2]. Elsewhere, it marks a metaphysical boundary between the living and the nonliving, emphasizing the power of spirit to transform the inert into something expressive and dynamic [3, 4]. The word also finds use in evoking extraordinary phenomena, whether in the reanimation of statues by divine whim [5] or in the rallying of men on a battlefield by a revitalizing spirit [6]. Through these varied applications, literature transforms “animate” into a vital device that bridges the material and metaphysical realms.
- Could you look, sir, into my heart, you would approve to the full the sentiments which animate me.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker - "The spirit of free trade alone," said Mr. Rabino to me, "must animate the management of such a bank.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate.
— from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass - To the savage the world in general is animate, and trees and plants are no exception to the rule.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - 20 The inferior gods might sometimes condescend to animate the statues, and to inhabit the temples, which were dedicated to their honor.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - After passing through the ranks to animate the troops, Ayesha had chosen her post amidst the dangers of the field.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
