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Literary notes about Class (AI summary)

The term "class" takes on a myriad of meanings within literary texts, reflecting both tangible social hierarchies and abstract categorizations. At times, it identifies segments of society defined by wealth, power, or occupation, as seen in discussions of political rights and social stratification ([1], [2], [3], [4]), while in other contexts it serves as a descriptor for groups defined by their natural attributes or professional pursuits ([5], [6], [7]). Moreover, "class" can denote technical divisions used in scientific taxonomy or in classifications within art and academic settings ([8], [9], [10]), illustrating its versatility. Even when employed metaphorically, the term conveys quality and superiority—as when distinctions are drawn between first-class and low-class statuses ([11], [12])—highlighting the layered ways in which literature interrogates and represents both societal order and individual identity ([13], [14]).
  1. [Pg 672] He advocated the elective franchise, saying that no class could be protected in all its rights without a voice in the laws.
    — from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I
  2. Men are uniformly more attentive to women of rank, family, and fortune, who least need their care, than to any other class.
    — from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I
  3. The landed proprietors constitute the dominating class in Prussia, and it is from this class that all officers and higher officials are drawn.
    — from Ecce Homo by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
  4. Modern society, if it pretends to any unity, cannot admit "purely personal obligations devised in the interests of an exclusive class."
    — from Bushido, the Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe
  5. As a class, they [231] are hardened ruffians, made such by nature and by occupation.
    — from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
  6. This reminded him that if there was one class of manifestation on this matter that he thoroughly understood, it was the instincts of sheep.
    — from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
  7. The members of this class had little ambition to create a position for themselves, but wanted the Federal officials to create one for them.
    — from Up from Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington
  8. The extinct Protamniote, the ancestor of the whole group, belongs in its whole organisation to the reptile class.
    — from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget
  9. It seems he was over at the Lowbridge Road school the other day and took a notion to examine the fourth class in spelling.
    — from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery
  10. The tunicates are the only class of animals that have a real cellulose or woody coat.
    — from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
  11. “Yes, I shall go, Uncle; and if I don’t find the ‘rolling Pillar of Life,’ at any rate I shall get some first-class shooting.”
    — from She by H. Rider Haggard
  12. A regular high-class affair, of course; not any sort of pig-sty for common sailors.
    — from Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen
  13. The morality of the powerful class, Nietzsche calls NOBLE- or MASTER-MORALITY; that of the weak and subordinate class he calls SLAVE-MORALITY.
    — from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
  14. Of the logical class, there are the Politics, the Cratylus, the Parmenides, and the Sophist.
    — from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

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