Literary notes about Anomaly (AI summary)
Writers deploy "anomaly" to signal departures from the expected order or natural law, whether in social institutions, nature, or individual lives. In political discourse, for instance, the term draws attention to irregular absences or deviations in established systems, as when Thomas Jefferson highlights a constitutional void [1]. In literature, the notion reframes peculiarities, such as the baffling irregularity questioned by Lewis Carroll [2] or the paradoxical human traits remarked upon by authors like Henry James [3, 4]. It also serves to spotlight absurd or ironic exceptions in everyday life, whether in social roles [5, 6] or even in zoological observations [7, 8]. Thus, "anomaly" is not merely a marker of difference but an invitation to probe deeper into what these irregularities reveal about the underlying principles of society, nature, or individual existence [9, 10, 11].
- The anomaly of the Constitution was the absence of provision for the judicature, the third co-ordinate branch of the government.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - How can we explain this curious anomaly?
— from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll - I will presently say what I can for that anomaly—and in the most conciliatory fashion.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James - Strange beyond saying were the ways of existence, baffling for him the anomaly of his lack, as he felt it to be, of producible claim.
— from The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James - "A private with a servant seems an anomaly," laughingly said Harry.
— from Life in the Confederate Army Being Personal Experiences of a Private Soldier in the Confederate Army, and Some Experiences and Sketches of Southern Life by Marion Johnstone Ford - That other anomaly, a man of inherited wealth, is disgusting to the anarchist.
— from The Paliser case by Edgar Saltus - As Professor Owen has remarked, there is no greater anomaly in nature than a bird that cannot fly; yet there are several in this state.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - An Italian symphony seems almost an anomaly,—as strange a product as was once a German opera.
— from Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies by Philip H. (Philip Henry) Goepp - In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings, with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind.
— from The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 7, March, 1835 by Various - Without a habitat a Forsyte is inconceivable—he would be like a novel without a plot, which is well-known to be an anomaly.
— from The Forsyte Saga, Volume I. by John Galsworthy - In both cases the apparent anomaly is the outcrop of a deeper law.
— from Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898 Volume 54, November 1898 by Various
