Literary notes about Infatuated (AI summary)
The word "infatuated" often conveys a sense of overwhelming, sometimes irrational passion or obsession in literary works. It is frequently used to describe characters who are swept up in emotions that cloud their judgment—whether in matters of love, ambition, or ideology. In one narrative, a young woman’s ardent feelings are laid bare as she is described with an almost naive intensity ([1]), while elsewhere it denotes a monarch’s excessive attachment that affects his decision-making ([2]). Authors extend its use to depict both romantic fixation and imprudent zeal: a character in one work is made to seem maddened by desire ([3], [4]), and in another, it illustrates a broader critique of an attachment to abstract ideals or power ([5], [6]). Across these varied contexts, the adjective serves as a literary tool to underscore the perils and unpredictability of passions, whether they lead characters to personal ruin, social folly, or even broader ideological fanaticism ([7], [8]).
- ‘No, you have not,’ said the infatuated girl.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - In fact, his majesty appears infatuated by him, and sometimes talks of him as if his descent were illustrious.”
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay - Josie said you were infatuated with her.”
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery - Augustus—you know my disreputable brother—such a trial to us all—well, Augustus is completely infatuated about her.
— from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde - It was the body which despaired of the body—it groped with the fingers of the infatuated spirit at the ultimate walls.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Kings or princes, whoever are infatuated with the possession of power, are sure to come to grief!’
— from The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 - Why, cannot you see that they are all infatuated with pride and vanity?”
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Until then I had been good; from that moment I became virtuous, or at least infatuated with virtue.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau