Literary notes about Slumber (AI summary)
In literature, slumber is cast in multifaceted lights—as a marker of literal repose, a state of resigned passivity, or even a metaphor for spiritual or intellectual dormancy. Authors like Jules Verne depict lengthy physical sleep as a pause from reality [1], while Dickens and Twain illustrate slumber as both an escape from worldly troubles and a precursor to renewal [2, 3]. At times, slumber signifies more than bodily rest; in poetic and allegorical narratives it suggests the weight of ignorance or a state akin to death, as evoked poignantly in works that liken it to a mysterious, almost eternal sleep [4, 5]. Equally, its rhythmic and somnolent resonance is used to underscore transitions—between consciousness and oblivion or between a state of inaction and the call to awaken [6, 7].
- An Invitation in Writing THE NEXT DAY , November 9, I woke up only after a long, twelve–hour slumber.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - In a moment more he was out of his troubles, in a deep slumber.
— from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain - After a time, he began, by slow degrees, as a man rousing himself from heavy slumber, to relax.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens - I was awakened from a slumber, like the slumber of death, by the pressing of spiritual lips upon my own.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe - Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.
— from Familiar QuotationsA Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced toTheir Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature - At present you are in a condition of mental slumber.
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol - [Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and Train.] PUCK If we shadows have offended, Think but this,—and all is mended,— That you have but slumber'd here
— from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
