Literary notes about Banal (AI summary)
In literature, "banal" is often deployed to critique or highlight a lack of originality or genuine depth. Writers use it to signal moments where dialogue, descriptions, or even architectural details lapse into the trite and unremarkable—for instance, when everyday political platitudes are dismissed as overly conventional ([1], [2]), or when character speech betrays a disappointing predictability ([3], [4]). The term also underscores the tension between creative insight and the monotony of commonplaces, as seen when authors note that even passionate subjects can descend into the realm of the mundane ([5], [6]). Overall, "banal" serves as a pointed reminder in narrative and critique that what is familiar and expected can sometimes lack the spark of true vitality.
- banal , a. commonplace , platitudinous , hackneyed, trite .
— from Putnam's Word Book A Practical Aid in Expressing Ideas Through the Use of an Exact and Varied Vocabulary by Louis A. (Louis Andrew) Flemming - This first truth is frankly banal; but it is so perpetually ignored in our political prosing that it must be made plain.
— from What's Wrong with the World by G. K. Chesterton - I think you would have liked the evening—it wasn't banal.
— from Letters of a Diplomat's Wife, 1883-1900 by Mary King Waddington - He could think of nothing to say that was not banal or superficial, and he realised that here were deep waters!
— from The Destroyer: A Tale of International Intrigue by Burton Egbert Stevenson - Nothing can be more banal than the observation; more serenely civil, less maddened than the tone in which it is conveyed.
— from Doctor Cupid: A Novel by Rhoda Broughton - The other went on talking agriculture, cattle, pasturage, filling out with banal phrases all the gaps where an allusion might slip in.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
