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Literary notes about Outpost (AI summary)

The term “outpost” in literature is frequently used to evoke a sense of isolation, frontier vulnerability, and strategic importance. It denotes not only a remote physical position—a small fortification or settlement set apart from the heart of civilization, as seen in the depiction of a distant glass dome [1] or a minor English frontier [2]—but also serves as a metaphor for the margins of reality and order [3]. In military narratives, it often designates a lightly manned position tasked with watching over the periphery, highlighting the precarious nature of defense, whether through the arrangement of patrols and skirmishes [4][5] or in settings where such posts become the last bastion of civilization [6][7].
  1. Besides this dome which had been built for us there was only one other outpost, another glassite dome much smaller and less than a mile away.
    — from Keep Out by Fredric Brown
  2. To the east the road swept backwards into the wilds, and some two miles along it was the next English outpost.
    — from The innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
  3. My surmises storm the last outpost of reality.
    — from Out of the Air by Inez Haynes Gillmore
  4. Your platoon now forms part of a new outpost line.
    — from A General's Letters to His Son on Minor Tactics by Anonymous
  5. The outpost of a small force should ordinarily hold the enemy beyond effective rifle range of the main body until the latter can deploy.
    — from Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) by United States. War Department
  6. We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.
    — from The Jewish State by Theodor Herzl
  7. For Tizimin is the last outpost of Yucatecan authority.
    — from The American Egypt: A Record of Travel in Yucatan by Frederick J. Tabor Frost

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