Literary notes about Incendiary (AI summary)
In literature, the term "incendiary" is employed both in its literal sense—referring to devices or acts that directly set things ablaze—and in a more figurative manner to denote ideas, rhetoric, or personalities that ignite passion or strife. Authors use it to evoke images of physical destruction, as when describing bombs or fires that consume their surroundings [1][2][3], while also applying it metaphorically to capture the volatile nature of words and actions that are meant to provoke upheaval or dissent, as indicated by references to incendiary documents, speeches, and political provocations [4][5][6]. Thus, across genres, "incendiary" serves as a dynamic descriptor that bridges the tangible and the symbolic, suggesting both a spark that engenders ruin and an idea that stirs rebellion [7][8].
- In this line the incendiary bomb offers an excellent illustration.
— from Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights by Kelly Miller - Auguste Claude and Adolphe Claude, the latter aged 75, were also killed, and 136 houses in the village were burned by means of incendiary cartridges.
— from The New York Times Current History, A Monthly Magazine
The European War, March 1915 by Various - The rocket carried incendiary or explosive warheads.
— from Rockets, Missiles, and Spacecraft of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution - They said they believed it was an incendiary document, leveled at the government.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain - It was what is called an “incendiary” appeal—it was written by a man into whose soul the iron had entered.
— from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair - “An incendiary the burden of whose song was his intention to assassinate me.”
— from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - Pro-Germans of incendiary tendency especially resented it.
— from Charles Frohman: Manager and Man by Daniel Frohman - They have decided at last that we are a battalion of incendiary, blood-thirsty Garibaldians in disguise!
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain