Literary notes about Sight (AI summary)
In literature, the term "sight" is not limited to its literal sense of seeing; it often embodies layers of symbolism, emotion, and perception. Authors use it to evoke immediate sensory impressions—a breathtaking landscape or a sudden encounter that stirs deep feelings ([1], [2], [3])—and to illustrate moments of transformative recognition, such as love or revulsion experienced at first glance ([4], [5]). At times, "sight" marks the boundary between presence and absence, as characters are lost to view or struggle not to lose sight of a precious figure ([6], [7], [8]). In other instances, it carries a moral or spiritual weight, highlighting divine omniscience or the profound significance of human conduct ([9], [10], [11]). Such varied applications reveal how writers weave the tangible act of seeing with metaphoric insights into human experience ([12], [13], [14]).
- I've been all over the world, Mistress Blythe, and take it all in all, I've never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise over the gulf.
— from Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery - How magnificent was the sight from this height!
— from Andersen's Fairy Tales by H. C. Andersen - I caught sight of a V-shaped ripple on the water ahead.
— from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - But, talking of foolishness, do you know Praskovya Pavlovna is not nearly so foolish as you would think at first sight?”
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Had he fallen in love with this surprising daughter of Mrs. Tulliver at first sight?
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot - Mahony began to play the Indian as soon as we were out of public sight.
— from Dubliners by James Joyce - Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view.
— from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce - Lilith then flew out of Eden and out of sight.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway - In thy sight are all they that afflict me; my heart hath expected reproach and misery.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - If it shall do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice: I will repent of the good that I have spoken to do unto it. 18:11.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - And I will possess thee in the sight of the Gentiles, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - In their highest creative moments the great poet, the great musician cease to use the crude instruments of sight and hearing.
— from The World I Live In by Helen Keller - Now when he was asleep, she loved him so that at the sight of him she could not keep back tears of tenderness.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - He reached the Champs-Elysees, and he continued to walk, enlivened by the sight of the young people trotting along.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant