Literary notes about MONTH (AI summary)
In literature, the word "month" frequently functions as both a precise measure of time and a device loaded with symbolic meaning. Authors often use it to mark the interval between significant events or characterize a period of transition or waiting. For instance, Dostoyevsky employs "month" in a reflective, personal context to denote the recent past after his father's death [1], while Casanova uses it pragmatically in financial transactions to indicate payment intervals [2]. In historical narratives and epic texts, "month" not only tracks time—as seen in Josephus’s dating of battles [3] or in biblical accounts [4, 5]—but it also frames the rhythm of life and the unfolding of human endeavors. Similarly, writers like Twain [6] and Chekhov [7] portray whole periods of change and introspection, underscoring how the passage of a month can encapsulate both the mundane and the momentous in literary storytelling.
- “However, it’s true enough that my father died a month ago, and that here am I returning from Pskoff, a month after, with hardly a boot to my foot.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - “On the contrary, you paid me a month in advance, and there are ten more days of the month to run.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - This battle was fought on the third day of the month Apelleus
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus - In the first month, the first of the month, thou shalt take a calf of the herd without blemish, and thou shalt expiate the sanctuary.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - And the children of Israel of the captivity kept the phase, on the fourteenth day of the first month.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - “Well—no—but next month, at furthest.” “We’ll go in the same steamer.”
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain - So we spent a whole month.
— from The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
