Literary notes about Preternatural (AI summary)
In literature, the term "preternatural" is employed to evoke qualities or events that seem to exceed the limits of natural explanation, lending an air of extraordinary intensity to characters and situations. Writers might describe a character’s gaze or emotional state as carrying a preternatural quality—suggesting something unnervingly beyond human—such as a burning intensity or unusual solemnity [1, 2]. It is also used to characterize phenomena that, while having natural explanations, appear imbued with an enigmatic or almost mystical power, as seen in references to uncanny insight or inexplicable conditions [3, 4, 5]. Thus, the adjective serves as a versatile stylistic device, blurring the lines between the natural and the supernatural, and imbuing the narrative with a sense of otherworldly depth.
- It gazed upon the pair with eyes that burned with a preternatural blaze, and a voice which Maltravers too well remembered shrieked out "Love!
— from Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron - All eyes were turned upon the spinster, who again nodded, with a face of preternatural solemnity.
— from The Story of Kennett by Bayard Taylor - Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville - Then came a sensation of fear; as if, not being actually human, yet so like humanity, she must therefore be something preternatural.
— from Mosses from an old manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne - Tod himself was imaginatively supposed to share it and exhibit preternatural intelligence upon the subject.
— from Vagabondia1884 by Frances Hodgson Burnett
