Literary notes about Hierarchy (AI summary)
The term "hierarchy" in literature is often used to evoke a system of ranks, distinctions, or classifications that structure both tangible and abstract realms. In some works, it denotes clearly defined social orders—as in a Muscovite rank system [1], feudal structures infused with chivalry [2], or even the systematic command found in military contexts [3]. In other cases, authors extend the concept to frame spiritual or intellectual domains, discussing the hierarchy of saints and angels [4, 5] or the organization of goods, ideas, and disciplines [6, 7, 8]. Critiques abound as well; reformers and satirists decry the corruption inherent in ecclesiastical hierarchies [9, 10] or suggest that established orders—including those in the arts or within democratic institutions—can become restrictive and outdated [11, 12]. Thus, whether describing a divine or social order, a classification scheme, or even a satirical metaphor, the notion of hierarchy persists as a powerful literary tool to explore both order and subordination within various spheres of human experience.
- I beg your most humble pardon; a rank in the Muscovite hierarchy, a decoration, what sort of distinction are they?
— from Pan Tadeusz; or, The last foray in Lithuania by Adam Mickiewicz - Though the feudal hierarchy was originally based on conquest or domestic subjection, it came to have a fanciful or chivalrous or political force.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants.
— from The Communist Manifesto by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx - The denial of spiritual hierarchy—"all alike before God." Popular ideals: the good man, the unselfish man, the saint, the sage, the just man.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche - gerarchía , a hierarchy of angels (Florio).
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - [11] In the hierarchy of the sciences, sociology, the last in time, was first in importance.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - The hierarchy of goods, the architecture of values, is the subject that concerns man most.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - There is a similar hierarchy in the region of universals.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - In his able martyrology he has elaborately treated of the vices and absurdities of papal hierarchy, of which the following is a brief enumeration.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - Cranmer's example is an endless testimony that fraud and cruelty are the leading characteristics of the catholic hierarchy.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - Berma in Phèdre , in the Cid ; well, she's only an actress, if you like, but you know that I don't believe very much in the 'hierarchy' of the arts."
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust - As in any other system which has so vast a hierarchy with so many grades of honor and authority, its theory of democracy is now a memory.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis
