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Literary notes about Cavalier (AI summary)

The word "cavalier" in literature serves a dual purpose: it designates both a courtly, chivalrous figure and an air of casual, sometimes even dismissive, nonchalance. In historical and adventure narratives it often identifies a distinguished gentleman or a military retainer—one associated with royal service or noble companionship ([1], [2], [3])—while in other contexts it characterizes a light-hearted, elegantly swaggering persona ([4], [5], [6]). Additionally, the term can appear in commercial or symbolic roles, as when it names a firm or a partner in business ([7], [8]). This multiplicity of uses allows "cavalier" to evoke images of valor and refinement as well as a certain stylish indifference throughout literary works.
  1. He fancied he had traced them to one Georges d'Anthes, a Frenchman in the Cavalier Guard, who had been adopted by the Dutch envoy Heeckeren.
    — from Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
  2. “I have the honour to introduce myself, the hereditary, honourable citizen and cavalier, Stepan Ivanovitch Kutsyn, mayor of this town.
    — from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
  3. He was a “cavalier” of the King’s household.
    — from A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama 1497-1499
  4. He was a youth again in feeling—a cavalier in action.
    — from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser
  5. At thirty-five, which was then his age, he passed, with just title, for the handsomest gentleman and the most elegant cavalier of France or England.
    — from The three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  6. He felt ready to face the devil, and strutted in the ballroom with the swagger of a cavalier.
    — from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson
  7. In 1838, a firm of Cavalier published "The Spirit of Modern Law" by Baron Bourlac, sharing the profits with the author.
    — from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Cerfberr and Christophe
  8. CAVALIER, Fendant's partner; both were book-collectors, publishers and venders in Paris, on rue Serpente in 1821.
    — from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Cerfberr and Christophe

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