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Literary notes about Perverse (AI summary)

The term “perverse” in literature is employed to depict a departure from accepted norms—be they moral, religious, or social—and it often carries a tone of condemnation or irony. In religious documents, it is used to criticize generations or individuals who deviate from what is considered righteous behavior, as seen when a figure is rebuked as belonging to a “perverse generation” ([1], [2]), or when hearts and tongues are accused of uttering perverse things ([3], [4]). At the same time, novelistic and philosophical works employ the term to characterize personal idiosyncrasies or unconventional desires, whether in reference to sexuality ([5], [6], [7]) or in the portrayal of characters’ defiant temperaments ([8], [9]). This versatile usage underscores literature’s attempt to challenge or illuminate the tensions between societal expectations and the complexity of individual nature ([10], [11]).
  1. Then Jesus answered and said: O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?
    — from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete
  2. And with very many other words did he testify and exhort them, saying: Save yourselves from this perverse generation.
    — from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete
  3. He that is of a perverse heart, shall not find good: and he that perverteth his tongue, shall fall into evil.
    — from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete
  4. The mouth of the just shall bring forth wisdom: the tongue of the perverse shall perish.
    — from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete
  5. To be sure, the chasm between normal and perverse sexuality is practically bridged by such facts.
    — from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
  6. Perverse sexuality, in brief, is nothing more than magnified infantile sexuality divided into its separate tendencies.
    — from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
  7. We term sexual activity perverse when it has renounced the aim of reproduction and follows the pursuit of pleasure as an independent goal.
    — from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
  8. "I have really sometimes been a perverse fellow," he went on, "but I will never again, if I can help it, do or say what you would disapprove.
    — from Middlemarch by George Eliot
  9. Frederica must be as much as sixteen, and ought to know better; but from what her mother insinuates, I am afraid she is a perverse girl.
    — from Lady Susan by Jane Austen
  10. Cooking is an art; it has in it personality, and even perversity, for the definition of an art is that which must be personal and may be perverse.
    — from What's Wrong with the World by G. K. Chesterton
  11. As that street-door closed, a sudden amazement at my own perverse proceeding struck like a blow upon me.
    — from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

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