Literary notes about Colony (AI summary)
The term "colony" finds diverse applications in literature, often evoking both physical settlements and wider metaphors of community and identity. In classical works, such as those by Virgil and Pliny, it denotes politically and militarily significant outposts established to secure and project power ([1], [2]), while in historical narratives the word underscores the inception and development of immigrant communities and urban centers, as seen in discussions of English settlements and American cities ([3], [4]). Additionally, literary works extend the meaning to encompass everyday communities and even metaphorical groups—as when a struggling group is likened to a colony of mice ([5]) or when a colony symbolizes a gathering of people sharing identity and purpose ([6]). Thus, across genres and eras, "colony" is used to articulate ideas about cultural transplantation, governance, and social unity.
- At once thou hast destroy’d thyself and me, Thy town, thy senate, and thy colony!
— from The Aeneid by Virgil - This was also a Roman colony founded by Augustus, after he had subdued the Salassi.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny - See the "History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay," by Hutchinson, vol.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville - On page 150 mention was made of the increase of the Chicago colony by the arrival of a number of immigrants from Voss, Norway, in 1839–41.
— from A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States by George T. Flom - Heathcliff would as soon lift a finger at you as the king would march his army against a colony of mice.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - The true working-class of a colony is formed by the small-sized order of workers, the worker-minors as they are called (Fig. 1).
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson
