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Literary notes about Mistress (AI summary)

The term “mistress” in literature is richly polysemous, often evoking a spectrum of roles and connotations. It may denote the authoritative lady of a household, as seen when one address to the “mistress of the house” establishes power and social order [1], and it can equally signify a woman engaged in an intimate, sometimes illicit, relationship, as when a character negotiates the nuances of love and possession [2]. Other texts employ the term more metaphorically or institutionally, whether highlighting self-possession and agency [3] or using “mistress” to allude to the commanding influence of nature and art [4]. This multiplicity of meanings reflects broader themes of control, desire, and social hierarchy across diverse literary traditions [5][6].
  1. Amalia Ivanovna, I humbly beg you as mistress of the house to pay careful attention to what I have to say to Sofya Ivanovna.
    — from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  2. “I see, but it seems strange; can one be said to have a mistress whom one does not love?”
    — from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova
  3. Now I am rich, childless, free, mistress of my fortune.
    — from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant
  4. Nature was "the true mistress of higher intelligences."
    — from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater
  5. “I take you as a good, honest woman, Nastasia Philipovna—not as Rogojin’s mistress.”
    — from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  6. “Dinna heed him, mistress, dinna credit his lees.
    — from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

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