Literary notes about Primordial (AI summary)
The term "primordial" in literature encapsulates notions of origination and the elemental, often invoking images of a time or state that predates modern civilization. It is deployed to depict the raw, unadulterated forces of nature and existence, as when landscapes or phenomena are described in terms that suggest an ancient, untouched era ([1], [2], [3]). Equally, the word emerges in philosophical and psychological discourse to denote fundamental habits, instincts, or energies inherent to human nature and the cosmos ([4], [5], [6]). In narrative contexts, authors evoke "primordial" to convey a sense of return to a wild, unmediated essence—whether reflecting on the basic drive of survival or the elemental constitution of the universe ([7], [8], [9]). This breadth of usage enriches literary expression by bridging the tangible and the abstract, linking the physical genesis of matter with the profound depths of human emotion and thought ([10], [11], [12]).
- He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial.
— from The call of the wild by Jack London - Traces of life have been detected in the Longmynd beds beneath Barrande's so-called primordial zone.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - Scientific: Primordial Epoch : Laurentian, Cambrian, Silurian.
— from The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2 of 4 by H. P. (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky - Why does he believe in primordial units of 'mind-stuff' on evidence which would seem quite worthless to Professor Bain?
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James - Ten or Heaven is not God or the abode of God, but an abstraction, a sort of Unknowable, or Primordial Necessity.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis - To suppose otherwise is to deny the primordial law of causation.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James - The Dominant Primordial Beast The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and under the fierce conditions of trail life it grew and grew.
— from The call of the wild by Jack London - The blaze of tropic suns was in his face, and in his swelling, resilient muscles was the primordial vigor of life.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London - Ocean is the immeasurable Space—Spirit in Chaos—which, is the Deity; and Tethys is not the Earth, but Primordial Matter in the process of formation.
— from The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2 of 4 by H. P. (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky - The Dionysian musician is, without any picture, himself just primordial pain and the primordial re-echoing thereof.
— from The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Substance, Pneuma, and Form being all evolved out of the primordial chaotic mass, this material world as it lies before us came into existence.”
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. Werner - O Primordial Being, incapable of being conceived by the soul or the mental faculties or otherwise, thou art the ruler of all and the lord of Brahma.
— from The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1