Literary notes about HASTEN (AI summary)
The word "hasten" in literature conveys a sense of urgency and rapid movement, whether it describes a rush to confrontation, a quickening of fate, or an abrupt change in circumstances. It appears in varied contexts such as the call for an inevitable reckoning in Gothic narratives [1], the impassioned charge of armies in epic verse [2, 3, 4], and the brisk urgency of personal action or return [5, 6, 7]. Its usage not only accelerates the pace of events but also enhances the dramatic tension, as characters, armies, or even abstract ideas are propelled forward with determined immediacy [8, 9, 10].
- No fresh outbreak of anger against him, no new appeal to me to hasten the day of reckoning escaped her.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - Then let our legions hasten near With bow and mace and sword and spear, And on the Vánar army rain Our steel and stone till all be slain.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - He spoke no more; but hasten’d, void of fear, And threaten’d with his long protended spear.
— from The Aeneid by Virgil - hasten'd to the field; (That day the son his father's buckler bore;) Then snatch'd a lance, and issued from the door.
— from The Iliad by Homer - So we will take leave of our friend, and let him hasten home.”
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - The forms of the beloved dead flit before me, and I hasten to their arms.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - He left Vienna, intending to hasten back to Rome.
— from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater - Nothing is more unproductive to the mind than an abstract idea; I therefore hasten to call in the aid of facts and examples to illustrate my meaning.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville - 'Hasten, reverend Father!' said He; 'Hasten to the young Rosario.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. Lewis - I went into another chamber, but was ready to hasten back, being almost overcome with a horrible stink.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift
