Literary notes about Recollection (AI summary)
In literature, "recollection" is often employed as a profound narrative device that evokes memories—both cherished and sorrowful—and serves to bridge the past with the present. Authors use it to capture the character’s emotional turbulence, whether it is a sudden, bittersweet return of a familiar scene ([1], [2]) or the gradual resurgence of events that have defined a lifetime ([3], [4]). It is rendered both as a momentary lapse, such as a fleeting flash of memory in a critical situation ([5], [6]), and as a sustained reflection that shapes character identity and moral insight ([7], [8]). Moreover, "recollection" frequently underscores the interplay between personal experience and historical consciousness, as seen in narratives recalling youthful days or shared cultural episodes ([9], [10]).
- The recollection of that childish time came as a sweet relief to Maggie.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot - Recollection brought fresh waves of sorrow, and sobs again took full charge of him, preventing further speech.
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame - In the night she awakened, with the stillness and the darkness about her, and the recollection of the day came over her like a wave of sorrow.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery - But of that —of that he had no recollection, and yet every minute he felt that he had forgotten something he ought to remember.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - " "Ah, to be sure," muttered Mr. Audley, a recollection of last September flashing suddenly back upon him as the surgeon spoke.
— from Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. Braddon - For a moment only did I lose recollection; I fell senseless on the ground.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Thus by the recollection of his past delights his imagination is kindled and his grief suspended.
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson - Reason is a necessary condition for conscience, but only because without the former a clear and connected recollection is impossible.
— from The Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer - You know, of course, that he had shot himself once already on her account,” she said, and the old lady’s eyelashes twitched at the recollection.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome awakens a solemn and mournful recollection.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
