Literary notes about Assent (AI summary)
Assent in literature often conveys a precise acknowledgment or agreement, whether it is a physical nod or a verbal affirmation. Authors use it not only to show a character’s clear support or consent, as seen when a character “bowed his assent” with decisive commitment [1, 2, 3], but also to illustrate a more formal approval required in legal, political, or philosophical contexts [4, 5, 6]. In some works, assent emerges subtly—a silence interpreted as acceptance [7] or a reluctant acquiescence [8, 9]—while in others it underpins a fundamental agreement, essential for binding social contracts or personal resolve [10, 11, 12]. This varied usage underscores its flexibility as a term that encapsulates both heartfelt and formal concurrence.
- But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds.—NOW will you listen to me?" Elinor bowed her assent.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - "Oh yes," said Caleb, in a deep voice of assent, as if it would be unreasonable to suppose anything else of him.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - Sir Philip made an inarticulate sound of assent.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant - [ It is true that the President refused his assent to this law; but he completely adopted it in principle.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville - Of such laws, the first and indispensable condition is the assent of those whose obedience they require, and for whose benefit they are designed.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - A proposition is persuasive, which leads to the assent of the mind, as for instance, “If she brought him forth, she is his mother.”
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius - The silence was taken as a sign of assent.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - I incautiously gave a qualified assent to this.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens - I felt however that another sort of people were suspicious even of truth, and refused to assent to it, if delivered in a smooth and copious discourse.
— from The Confessions of St. Augustine by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine - It seems to me that there are at least three kinds of belief, namely memory, expectation and bare assent.
— from The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell - The free assent of many Jews will confer on it the requisite authority in its relations with Governments.
— from The Jewish State by Theodor Herzl - By his brother's infernal streams, by the banks of the pitchy black-boiling chasm he signed assent, and made all Olympus quiver at his nod.
— from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil
