Literary notes about Precinct (AI summary)
The word "precinct" has been employed by various authors to denote spaces imbued with symbolic, cultural, or territorial significance. In works like Frazer's The Golden Bough, it is used to evoke the sacred—crowds of women gathered in a sanctified precinct ([1]) or a king dedicating a precinct to the goddess Diana ([2]). In contrast, in Dante’s context ([3]) the term hints at measurable physical or metaphorical differences in a realm, while in Riis’s account it shifts to an urban setting marked by law enforcement ([4]). Sinclair Lewis uses it to emphasise political divisions within communities ([5]), whereas Victor Hugo and Emerson elevate the idea further as a symbol of rationality and purity, respectively, likening it to a sanctuary ([6],[7]). Finally, Hardy casts it as a marker of urban identity, embedding historical connotations in every street or alley ([8]).
- The sacred precinct was crowded with women waiting to observe the custom.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - There he reigned a king, and there he dedicated a precinct to Diana.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - And had it not been, that upon that precinct Shorter was the ascent than on the other,
— from Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell by Dante Alighieri - I came across a company of them “hitting the pipe” together, on a tour through their dens one night with the police captain of the precinct.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. Riis - Babbitt was precinct-leader on Floral Heights, but his district was safe and he longed for stouter battling.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis - You violate the sacred precinct of rational Representation.
— from The History of a Crime by Victor Hugo - How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson - n. Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley, and precinct.
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy