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Literary notes about Incitement (AI summary)

The term "incitement" in literature carries a rich and multifaceted significance, ranging from a simple impulse to a powerful call to action. In some instances, it is equated with an inner push or impulsion—as seen in Ben Jonson’s works ([1], [2]) and Rudyard Kipling’s lively depictions ([3], [4])—suggesting a natural, sometimes unconscious stirring that propels behavior. At other times, authors like Flavius Josephus ([5]) and Dostoyevsky ([6], [7], [8]) employ "incitement" to denote external influences that might spur moral reckoning or, contrariwise, the descent into wickedness. Notably, it is also linked to the genesis of noble deeds and profound life assertions, as evidenced in the works of Wagner ([9]), Nietzsche ([10], [11]), and Tacitus ([12]), and even extended into the political realm by figures such as Thomas Jefferson ([13]). Together, these examples illustrate how "incitement" functions as a versatile metaphor—capable of describing both the subtle stirrings of the human spirit and the overt provocations that can alter destinies.
  1. IMPULSION, incitement.
    — from The Alchemist by Ben Jonson
  2. IMPULSION, incitement.
    — from Every Man in His Humor by Ben Jonson
  3. Her Daddy went on drawing, and his hand shook with incitement.
    — from Just so stories by Rudyard Kipling
  4. ‘Why?’ said Taffy, and her eyes shone too with incitement.
    — from Just so stories by Rudyard Kipling
  5. Our mother is dead indeed, but then what befell her might be an instruction to us to caution, and not an incitement to wickedness.
    — from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus
  6. The fact is, it is still uncertain whether there had been any outside influence or incitement at work or not.
    — from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  7. “Economic ideas are not an incitement to murder, and one has but to suppose...”
    — from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  8. “But here, for instance, is an incitement to destroy churches.”
    — from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  9. He declared that in many great men this doubt, even though only tacitly held, had been the real incitement to noble deeds.
    — from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner
  10. The clause reads: "Preaching of chastity is a public incitement to unnatural practices.
    — from Ecce Homo by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
  11. But this pain acts as a greater incitement to life, and increases the will to power.
    — from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche
  12. Every incitement to victory is on our side.
    — from The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus by Cornelius Tacitus
  13. Dependance is a perpetual Call upon Humanity, and a greater Incitement to Tenderness and Pity than any other Motive whatsoever.
    — from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson

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