Literary notes about Embodiment (AI summary)
In literature, the term "embodiment" functions as a powerful device to convey the concrete manifestation of abstract qualities and ideas. It is often used to personify virtues or vices, such as when a character is described as the embodiment of truth and wisdom [1, 2] or when a figure represents the very essence of error and evil [3]. At the same time, it bridges the mythical and the material: a farm might harbor its own embodiment of the corn-spirit [4], while gods and supernatural forces are evoked through tangible representations in both religious and mythological contexts [5, 6]. Whether it is used to illustrate the idealization of human virtues [7] or to capture the complex interplay between nature and culture [8, 9], "embodiment" remains a versatile literary tool that encapsulates and gives life to otherwise intangible concepts [10, 11, 12].
- And all were exalted, adored, and idolized by their respective admirers, as containing a perfect embodiment of truth, without any admixture of error.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves - Man himself—that embodiment of all the wisdom and all the sagacity of the ages?"
— from The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) - To him, as to other great teachers both philosophical and religious, when they looked upward, the world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato - Thus, each farm has its own embodiment of the corn-spirit.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - He came to be looked on as an embodiment of Set or Typhon, the Egyptian devil and enemy of Osiris.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - But the original dragon was an embodiment of mythological ideas as old as mankind, and older than any written record.
— from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes - I'm quite willing to agree that Rilla Blythe is the embodiment of all the virtues, if that will please you.
— from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery - The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne - THE LAST animal embodiment of the corn-spirit which we shall notice is the pig (boar or sow).
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - Many of them were delicious in the role; one of them was the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm.
— from The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin - Still more would this apply to the greatest works of art, which seem to be the visible embodiment of the divine.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato - It is a sublime embodiment, or sublimest, of the soul of Christianity.
— from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle
