Literary notes about Enjoin (AI summary)
In literature, "enjoin" carries a weight of authoritative command that spans moral, legal, and even mystical dimensions. It is used to instruct characters with precision, whether by demanding silence—as when a figure gestures for quiet in [1] or [2]—or by imposing ethical or religious duties, as in the exhortations found in [3] and [4]. The term lends a formal tone to both grand epic narratives, where divine forces enjoin heroic actions in [5] and [6], and to legal or didactic discourses that prescribe proper conduct in [7] and [8]. This versatility allows authors to imbue their text with an aura of obligation that both guides and challenges behavior.
- At length he arose, and putting his fingers upon his lips, to enjoin perfect silence, he withdrew from the room.
— from Cora and The Doctor; or, Revelations of A Physician's Wife by Madeline Leslie - He stood beside the bed, with his finger on his lips, as though there were some one in the chamber whom he must enjoin to silence.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - “My son, I enjoin thee, as thine Archbishop, that thou send this letter.
— from The White Lady of Hazelwood: A Tale of the Fourteenth Century by Emily Sarah Holt - Did not Christ enjoin His disciples: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect"?
— from Secret societies and subversive movements by Nesta Helen Webster - This would enjoin us from consigning something sublime to History.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - , Each quits his car, and issues on the plain, By orders strict the charioteers enjoin'd Compel the coursers to their ranks behind.
— from The Iliad by Homer - In fact he tells him to do very much more than emancipate his slave, but this one thing he does not directly enjoin.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon by J. B. Lightfoot - Fred's last words had been to enjoin me to keep his visit a secret from all.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
