Literary notes about Garb (AI summary)
In literature, the term "garb" is employed not only to describe the physical apparel a character wears but also to evoke symbolic attributes and social identities. Authors use it to convey a sense of mood or status—consider the somber mourning garb that signals grief or isolation ([1], [2], [3])—while other works highlight its role in demarcating social classes or disguising true nature, as when characters don the garb of respectability or asceticism ([4], [5]). At times, "garb" even functions metaphorically, representing the external layer that cloaks inner complexities or pretensions, as seen in passages where the attire becomes a marker of both virtue and vice ([6], [7]). This multifaceted usage enriches narrative texture, accentuating both literal and figurative meanings within various cultural and historical contexts ([8], [9]).
- Thus prostrate in the mourner's cell, In garb of woe the lady fell, Her long hair in a single braid, Like some fair nymph of heaven dismayed.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - Often, too, he put on a mourning garb and brought his mother and children, tied hand and foot, into the presence of the populace. (Valesius, ib.)
— from Dio's Rome, Volume 1 by Cassius Dio Cocceianus - He puts on all the garb of woe, the straw hat, the white robe with long sleeves turned inside out, and the other paraphernalia of full mourning.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - Following Jefferson's sweeping social success, men abandoned knee breeches and became democratic in garb as well as in thought.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - Thy spies in foreign kingdoms should be apt deceivers and persons in the garb of ascetics.
— from The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 - “Nothing,” replied Phoebus, “I was only saying that you must abandon all this garb of folly, and the street corner when you are with me.”
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo - He flattered no bad passion, disguised no vice in the garb of virtue, trifled with no just and generous principle.
— from Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by E. Nesbit and William Shakespeare - “I have resolved to throw off the garb which could not procure me a fortune likely to satisfy my ambition.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - He was an aged man, clad in seafaring garb, with an old pea-jacket buttoned up to his throat.
— from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
