Literary notes about Expanse (AI summary)
The word "expanse" is deployed to evoke a vision of vast, seemingly unending space that can be both literal and metaphorical. It captures the tangible breadth of nature—as seen in depictions of frozen lakes stretching into the distance ([1]), or barren landscapes of deep sand ([2])—while also symbolizing the limitless scope of thought and the human spirit ([3], [4]). Writers use it to enhance atmosphere, describing not only the physical reaches of oceans and skies ([5], [6], [7]) but also to suggest an emotional or conceptual magnitude that resonates on a personal level ([8], [9]). In this way, "expanse" becomes a versatile term, bridging the outer world with inner experience.
- Ice accumulated at the mouth of the Mercy, and it was not long before the whole expanse of the lake was frozen.
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne - Presently we came to a place where no grass grew—a wide expanse of deep sand.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain - Be it so, but at least this indicates agility if not expanse of soul.
— from Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal - Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.
— from Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal - A vast, limitless expanse of water, the end of a lake if not of an ocean, spread before us, until it was lost in the distance.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne - An unvaried pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - At the entrance to the Arbát Square an immense expanse of dark starry sky presented itself to his eyes.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - And they saw that it was vast, and wide as the expanse of space, unfathomable, and limitless, and the grand reservoir of water.’
— from The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 - Thy wings stretch broad As heaven's expanse!
— from Poems by Victor Hugo
