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Literary notes about Direct (AI summary)

The word "direct" assumes many nuances in literary contexts, often conveying immediacy, clarity, or an unmediated connection. It sometimes underlines a physical or metaphorical path that is straightforward and unambiguous—as when characters commit to a course of action without detour ([1], [2]), or when narratives emphasize an instantaneous, almost unfiltered, expression of emotion or judgment ([3], [4]). In other instances, "direct" is used to denote precise instruction or command, whether addressing an object, a person, or abstract ideas, as seen in appeals for immediate response ([5], [6]) or in grammatical contexts where it contrasts with the indirect ([7], [8]). This multiplicity of senses enriches literary language, enabling authors to articulate both literal directions and symbolic, unmediated relationships between ideas and actions ([9], [10]).
  1. When returning from Cananor he shaped a direct course across the Indian Ocean to Mozambique.
    — from A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama 1497-1499
  2. Chalco and Texcoco are divided by a narrow strip of land over which the direct road to the city runs.
    — from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. Grant
  3. This is direct religion, which is full of anxiety and responsibility for him who attempts its steep cliffs.
    — from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
  4. His poetry is the Spenserian pastoral stripped of its refinement of feeling and made direct, coarse, vigorous.
    — from English Literature by William J. Long
  5. But everything must be done as I direct.
    — from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson
  6. 'If you can direct me how to send proposals, I should wish that they were in such hands.
    — from Boswell's Life of Johnson by James Boswell
  7. Interrogative sentences, 2 f.; order in, 3 ; do , did in, 114 ; direct and indirect questions,
    — from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by Frank Edgar Farley and George Lyman Kittredge
  8. Turn all the indirect questions which you have just written into direct questions.
    — from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by Frank Edgar Farley and George Lyman Kittredge
  9. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut.
    — from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
  10. But the soul is also real, it too is positive and direct, No reasoning, no proof has establish'd it, Undeniable growth has establish'd it.
    — from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

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