Literary notes about Licentious (AI summary)
Authors employ "licentious" to denote a sense of unrestrained, often socially or morally debased behavior that breaches established norms. It is used to highlight irregularity and disorder—not only in artistic expression, as when verse is deemed irregular and morally lax [1], but also in civic life, where unruly conduct is portrayed as a symptom of governmental breakdown [2]. Philosophers and historians similarly denounce licentious conduct as emblematic of wider moral corruption, warning about its potential to sow chaos in both personal relations and state affairs [3, 4]. Moreover, the term is frequently linked to overindulgence in sensual or amorous pursuits, serving as a critique of behavior that disregards traditional standards of propriety [5, 6].
- Their versification, which, having received its laws only from the ear, abounds in irregularities, seems licentious and uncouth.
— from Lays of Ancient Rome by Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay - And there was nobody to reprove them; but these disorders were done after a licentious manner in the city, as if it had no government over it.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus - Or would you ascertain whether he is licentious by putting your wife or daughter into his hands?
— from Laws by Plato - But these regulations would have been impotent and nugatory, had not the licentious nobles been awed by the sword of the civil power.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - Chia Pao-yü reaps his first experience in licentious love.
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao - 'My nature was licentious and warm, but not cruel: My conduct had been imprudent, but my heart was not unprincipled.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. Lewis
