Literary notes about Awful (AI summary)
The word "awful" in literature is used with remarkable flexibility, carrying a spectrum of emotional and descriptive weight. Authors employ the term as an intensifier to evoke fear, dread, or solemnity—capturing grand, ominous presences or threatening natural phenomena, as seen when a majestic summit is described with an "awful presence" [1] or when a catastrophic event fills an entire empire with grief and terror [2]. At the same time, "awful" can highlight acute personal sensations or attitudes, from the tormented fixation on a lost key [3] to feelings of intense warmth or relief, as in being "awful glad" [4]. This versatility also allows it to color scenes with physical or atmospheric intensity, whether describing a cacophony that leaves one shaken [5] or a peculiar quiet that settles over a desolate place [6]. Overall, the word enriches narrative textures by shifting between the expressions of overwhelming dread, subtle irony, and even endearment.
- On yon tall summit of the fountful Ide: There in the father's awful presence stand, Receive, and execute his dread command.
— from The Iliad by Homer - This awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished empire with grief and terror.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - There is nothing in my life so awful as to be able to frighten me, only that lost key torments my soul and does not let me sleep.
— from Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs Hale.
— from Plays by Susan Glaspell - There was a moment of awful suspense as the procession waited for the Honourable Samuel Slumkey to step into his carriage.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - The last of the evening light was fading away; and over all the desolate place there hung a still and awful calm.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
