Literary notes about Phantasmal (AI summary)
The term "phantasmal" is often employed to evoke a sense of ethereal, otherworldly presence or to describe something that is elusive and dreamlike. In various works, it is used to blur the boundaries between tangible reality and an insubstantial, spectral world, as when a vision seen in sleep is rendered into a ghostly image ([1]) or when the mind conjures illusions that feel as real as any physical form ([2]). It can capture the eerie beauty of landscapes under dim light or create atmospheres of suspense and mystery, such as landscapes that seem "ghost-like" in twilight ([3]) or fleeting apparitions that haunt the edges of perception ([4]). In these contexts, "phantasmal" not only enhances the visual or emotional impact but also underscores the delicate interplay between memory and imagination, often leaving characters and readers alike with an enduring sense of wonder and uncertainty ([5], [6]).
- And thus what the one saw when sleeping was shown to the other when awake by a phantasmal image.
— from The City of God, Volume II by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine - My difficulty is to separate the real from the phantasmal."
— from Brood of the Witch-Queen by Sax Rohmer - In the twilight of age all things seem strange and phantasmal, As between daylight and dark ghost-like the landscape appears.
— from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - The components of The Raven are few and simple: a man, a bird, and the phantasmal memory at a woman.
— from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe - It was all so unnatural that it affected him like the phantasmal background of a dream.
— from A Reconstructed Marriage by Amelia E. Barr - His appearance realized the phantasmal ideas which we form of inspired beings as we read the prophesies of the Bible.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by HonorĂ© de Balzac
