Literary notes about Sanguinary (AI summary)
Sanguinary is employed in literature to evoke vivid images of bloodshed, cruelty, and the grim reality of violent conflict. Writers use it to underscore scenes of political upheaval and brutal warfare—as when it describes a revolutionary role marked by blood and strife [1] or a battle that leaves thousands dead on a blood-soaked field [2]. It also colors characterizations of individuals with an inherently cruel or savage temperament, whether underscoring an inescapable destiny of fatal violence [3, 4] or illustrating the fierce and remorseless nature of tyrannical regimes [5, 6]. This evocative adjective, by linking the literal and metaphorical elements of blood and brutality, enriches narratives spanning historical treatises to classic novels [7, 8].
- 686 In Spain and Portugal Freemasonry has played not merely a subversive but an actively revolutionary and sanguinary rôle.
— from Secret societies and subversive movements by Nesta Helen Webster - Forty thousand men had fought a battle only about three hours long, and eight thousand of them lay dead or wounded upon the sanguinary field.
— from The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler - The Castle of St. Michael situated near the Fontanka Canal was built by the Emperor Paul; and here he met his sanguinary death.
— from Due North; or, Glimpses of Scandinavia and Russia by Maturin Murray Ballou - This young man terrifies me, my lord; there lies in him a sanguinary predisposition.”
— from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - Christian Antiquities, ii. 64.—M.] The sanguinary temper of Galerius, the first and principal author of t
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - The defeat was complete and very sanguinary.
— from The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli - I thought of Elizabeth, of my father, and of Clerval—all left behind, on whom the monster might satisfy his sanguinary and merciless passions.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - What were Mr. Winkle’s feelings when, in doing so, he disclosed to view the face and figure of the vindictive and sanguinary Dowler!
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
