Literary notes about Filth (AI summary)
The word “filth” functions on multiple levels in literature, often evoking both a tangible sense of decay and a more abstract moral corruption. In vivid narrative settings, it paints images of grimy, polluted urban landscapes or personal disarray, as seen in descriptions of decrepit streets and squalid living conditions [1, 2, 3]. At the same time, many authors employ “filth” as a metaphor for ethical degradation and spiritual impurity, linking it to idolatry, sin, and the defilement of the soul [4, 5, 6]. Figures like Nietzsche and Shakespeare further use the term to challenge conventional notions of purity and to critique broader societal values [7, 8, 9]. In this way, “filth” becomes a loaded symbol in literature, uniting the physical and the moral in its rich, multifaceted imagery [10, 11, 12].
- He seemed to know where he was going, for he led the way without a pause through long blank silent streets of indescribable filth and smells.
— from The Best Short Stories of 1917, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story - The whole visit to the subterranean stream of filth of Paris lasted seven years, from 1805 to 1812.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - He hardly noticed the blank walls, the archways of brick and tile, the tall badgirs , even the filth and smells.
— from The Best Short Stories of 1917, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story - It is the usual phrase of the scripture to call idols filth and abominations. 32:26.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - Thou shalt detest it as dung, and shalt utterly abhor it as uncleanness and filth, because it is an anathema.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - They have sinned against him, and are none of his children in their filth: they are a wicked and perverse generation.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - Ofttimes sitteth filth on the throne.—and ofttimes also the throne on filth.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - I have used thee, Filth as thou art, with human care; and lodged thee
— from The Tempest by William Shakespeare - A new child: oh, how much new filth hath also come into the world!
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - A cleansing medicine, then, is of a terrene quality, which takes away the filth with it, and carries it out.
— from The Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper - We were made quite ill by this modernity,—with its indolent peace, its cowardly compromise, and the whole of the virtuous filth of its Yea and Nay.
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche - To pain I respond with tears and outcries, to baseness with indignation, to filth with loathing.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
