Literary notes about CLIQUE (AI summary)
In literature, "clique" is frequently employed to depict small, exclusive groups whose unity often carries negative, conspiratorial, or elitist overtones. Authors use it to describe factions in political and social life—ranging from corrupt circles controlling labor or governmental power [1] [2] [3] to insular assemblies that govern the manners and customs of a particular social set [4] [5]. At times, the term is also infused with satirical humor or serves to underline the isolation and self-interest that can characterize such groups [6] [7]. Across these works, "clique" conveys a sense of togetherness that is as much about the support of one’s own interests as it is about the marginalization of outsiders.
- He was not the man to desert a poor old woman in her sorrow at the bidding of an irresponsible clique of labor bosses.
— from Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New YorkA Series of Stories and Sketches Portraying Many SingularPhases of Metropolitan Life by Lemuel Ely Quigg - Johnson, and the corrupt clique of predatory merchants, as well as out of the reach of voracious noblemen like Warwick.
— from The Beginners of a Nation A History of the Source and Rise of the Earliest English Settlements in America, with Special Reference to the Life and Character of the People by Edward Eggleston - He ruled through a small clique of ministers and personal dependents, mostly members of his wife's family.
— from A History of EnglandEleventh Edition by Charles Oman - Don't the very greatest ladies of all talk about that small clique of persons to whom they belong?
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - It could aid one clique of Whigs to destroy another clique of Whigs, but it could do nothing to interrupt the general course of Whig administration.
— from History of the English People, Volume VII The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 by John Richard Green - They have become the mere mannerism of a clique, and the exaggerated realism of their method gives dull people bronchitis.
— from Intentions by Oscar Wilde - Well, well, why not laugh at others, if others laugh at you?—and they do; the clique doesn’t mince matters in talking about you.”
— from Pierrette by Honoré de Balzac
