Literary notes about Copulation (AI summary)
The term “copulation” is deployed across various literary and scholarly contexts to denote the act of sexual union with both literal and metaphorical significance. In religious and historical texts, it is used with a sense of ritual and purity or impurity, as in descriptions of ceremonial washing required after the act ([1], [2], [3]). In scientific and naturalistic discourses, the word describes the intricate processes of mating in animals, sometimes contrasting the union in different species or even unicellular organisms ([4], [5], [6]). Meanwhile, in poetic and satirical compositions, “copulation” takes on an ironic or metaphorical dimension, highlighting its impact on character and society through vivid imagery ([7], [8]). This multifaceted use underscores its enduring versatility in literature and inquiry alike.
- The man from whom the seed of copulation goeth out, shall wash all his body with water: and he shall be unclean until the evening.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - This is the law of him that hath the issue of seed, and that is defiled by copulation.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - 15:18 The woman also with whom man shall lie with seed of copulation, they shall both bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the even.
— from The King James Bible - "I have followed animals of that species a number of times," he says, "during the preparations for copulation.
— from The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891 by Various - Copulation commenced five days after the female had hatched and was repeated a number of times, sexual union lasting for hours.
— from Handbook of Medical Entomology by O. A. (Oskar Augustus) Johannsen - By conjugation is meant the partial and momentary union of two different unicellulars, while copulation is a total and permanent coalescence.
— from The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy by Ernst Haeckel - A CLOWN Is a centaur, a mixture of man and beast, like a monster engendered by unnatural copulation, a crab engrafted on an apple.
— from Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century - “Yes, even greater than lustful and illegitimate copulation.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova