Literary notes about Redound (AI summary)
The term "redound" has been employed across literary texts to suggest that actions, virtues, or even misdeeds accumulate effects that ultimately enhance or taint an individual’s or a community's reputation. For instance, Dante implies that deeds can transfer glory or shame, indicating that one's conduct directly contributes to personal honor or ignominy [1]. This nuanced use is echoed in Jonathan Swift's narrative, where redound is invoked to denote the augmentation of national honor through various pursuits [2, 3]. In philosophical works such as Santayana’s and Boethius’s, the term underscores how benefits from individual efforts extend their influence to society and practical knowledge, highlighting an intrinsic link between personal actions and communal welfare [4, 5]. Even biblical and classical texts, including those from the King James Bible, Xenophon, Nietzsche, and La Fontaine, use redound to remind readers that all circumstances—be they creditable or otherwise—directly affect one’s standing and legacy [6, 7, 8, 9].
- Burghers of thine, five such were found by me Among the thieves; whence I ashamed [668] grew, Nor shall great glory thence redound to thee.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri - I did not omit even our sports and pastimes, or any other particular which I thought might redound to the honour of my country.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift - I did not omit even our sports and pastimes, or any other particular, which I thought might redound to the honor of my country.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift - But somehow the benefit must redound to society and to practical knowledge, or these abstracted hermits will seem at first useless and at last mad.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - The things laid to thy charge whereof thou hast spoken, whether such as redound to thy credit, or mere false accusations, are publicly known.
— from The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius - Be particularly careful to conceal no one circumstance likely to redound to your credit.
— from The King James Version of the Bible - Our cultured men of to-day, our "good" men, do not lie—that is true; but it does not redound to their honour!
— from The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Somewhere I may rise to honour, and that, be sure, shall redound to your gain also."
— from Anabasis by Xenophon - 'God's blessings thus redound To those who in His vows retire.'
— from Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes by Jean de La Fontaine