Literary notes about Secular (AI summary)
In literature, the word "secular" is used to contrast the worldly and non-religious with the sacred, providing a framework for discussions that range from governance and education to art and architecture. It often marks a shift from divine or ritual matters, as seen in descriptions of monarchies blending with national grandeur [1] or in discussions of the independent, modern intellectual [2]. At times it delineates aspects of human culture—such as poetry, musical genres, and civic structures—that are deliberately set apart from religious influences [3, 4, 5]. Authors also invoke "secular" to underscore the tension between the ordinary and the exalted, whether in reference to lifestyle choices and attire [6] or in the broader context of historical transitions from sacred to worldly paradigms [7, 8, 9].
- It has mingled, though with regret, the secular grandeurs of the monarchy with the new grandeurs of the nation.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - Modern times had created the independent thinker, the free intellectual in a secular civilization.
— from The Enchiridion by Epictetus - Four of the secular poems are didactic in character.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell - Germany possesses a number of important examples of secular Gothic work, chiefly municipal buildings (gates and town halls) and castles.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - It is secular in style as well as in matter, being almost free from references to any of the gods.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell - “She used to go to his house in secular dress whenever he wanted her.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - A secular age succeeds to a theocratical.
— from Gorgias by Plato - Where secular history begins the human race had passed into the second stage.
— from Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation by Jesse Henry Jones - It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it.
— from The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer
