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]).
- Then Jesus answered and said: O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - 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 - 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 - The mouth of the just shall bring forth wisdom: the tongue of the perverse shall perish.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - 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 - 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 - 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 - "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 - 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 - 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 - As that street-door closed, a sudden amazement at my own perverse proceeding struck like a blow upon me.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë