Literary notes about Collusion (AI summary)
The word “collusion” in literature has long been a versatile term used to imply secretive cooperation, often with negative connotations. In E. M. Forster’s Howards End [1], it is employed almost as a repudiation of illicit alliance, whereas Benito Pérez Galdós in Doña Perfecta [2] leans on its connotation of conspiratorial scheming. T. Smollett, in The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom [3], presents it as an instrument that helps characters escape suspicion, while Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s works [4, 5, 6] explore the layered dynamics of unspoken pacts as both a genuine compact and a feigned resemblance to conspiracy. Arthur Schopenhauer’s essay [7] contrasts collusion with mere conventional behavior, and in the more straightforward narrative of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair [8] and Sherman’s Memoirs [9], it is directly linked to treacherous plots that enable evasion of accountability. Even in the subtle poetic description found in Juliette Drouet’s Love-Letters [10], collusion is implied by the shared, unspoken admiration that is distinctly unplanned.
- She’s NOT in collusion with the matron.
— from Howards End by E. M. Forster - confabular i confabulate; r collude; se han—do are in collusion.
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós - By these preconcerted recriminations, they escaped all suspicion of collusion.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. Smollett - “They are cunning; they were acting in collusion on Sunday,” he blurted out suddenly.… “Oh, not a doubt of it,” I cried, pricking up my ears.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - “That is, you told your story so as to leave them in doubt and suggest some compact and collusion between us, when there was no collusion and
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - “That is, you told your story so as to leave them in doubt and suggest some compact and collusion between us, when there was no collusion and
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - And yet there can be no doubt but that these standing gestures, which every one uses, are the result of no convention or collusion.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism by Arthur Schopenhauer - There was collusion, sir, or that villain never would have escaped.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - Then Coleman said "the people had no confidence in Scannell, the sheriff," who was, he said, in collusion with the rowdy element of San Francisco.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. Sherman - Her gait was, in fact, so fairy-like that her admirers all make use, certainly without collusion, of the adjective, “aérien.”
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud
