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Literary notes about Lordling (AI summary)

The term "lordling" appears in literature to signify a figure of minor noble status, often carrying connotations of both hierarchical significance and diminutiveness. In James Joyce's Ulysses, for instance, the word is couched among a parade of vivid character images, hinting at a person of noble association yet reduced to a somewhat trivial role in the social fabric [1]. Similarly, Robert Burns makes use of "lordling" in a context that underscores the subservience or imbalance inherent in the natural order, implying that even noble distinctions might impose constraints on individual freedom [2]. Together, these examples reveal how the term can both denote a rank beneath full lordship and serve as a literary device for critiquing social dynamics.
  1. Why does he send to one who is a buonaroba, a bay where all men ride, a maid of honour with a scandalous girlhood, a lordling to woo for him?
    — from Ulysses by James Joyce
  2. “If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave, By Nature's law design'd, Why was an independent wish E'er planted in my mind?
    — from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

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