Literary notes about Portrayal (AI summary)
In literature, "portrayal" serves as a versatile tool for rendering everything from vivid character sketches to abstract themes. It can denote a detailed, lifelike description, as when an author captures complex emotions or distinctive personal traits ([1], [2]), or a broader depiction of settings and ideas using language as a medium ([3], [4]). At times the term even underlines a creative interpretation of reality—illustrating, for instance, the dramatic quality of a historical figure or an elaborate mood picture ([5], [6]). Whether in conveying the subtleties of character or the sweeping landscape of human experience, portrayal helps bridge the gap between the tangible and the imaginative in narrative art ([7]).
- Victor Hugo’s masterly portrayal in Les Miserables is doubtless the best; but Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Captain Siborne, and Napoleonic writers
— from Battles of Destiny by Isabel Shepperson - Matthew Arnold said of her that, "for the portrayal of passion, vehemence, and grief," Emily Brontë had no equal save Byron.
— from English Literature by William J. Long - Description is the portrayal of an object by means of language.
— from Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism by F. V. N. (Franklin Verzelius Newton) Painter - It was still the portrayal of things for what they meant, rather than for what they looked.
— from A Text-Book of the History of Painting by John Charles Van Dyke - [417] "the arch-enemy of mankind," [418] —phrases which, in spite of their vividness, hardly seem to promise a life-like portrayal of the man.
— from Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature by Margaret Ball - This notwithstanding, Verne furnishes the most evocative portrayal of the ocean depths before the arrival of Jacques Cousteau and technicolor film.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - Altogether it is a bright, clever, entertaining tale, with a rare distinction in its minute portrayal of diverse character.
— from Blackie & Son's Books for Young People, Catalogue - 1891 by Blackie & Son
