Literary notes about Sunder (AI summary)
The word "sunder" is employed in literature to convey a sense of forceful separation, whether of tangible objects or abstract bonds. In poetic contexts, such as in Shakespeare’s verse, it poignantly captures the idea of love or friendship being irrevocably divided [1, 2, 3]. In religious and epic writings, it denotes not only the physical breaking of structures—like the cleaving of iron gates in sacred texts [4, 5, 6]—but also the metaphorical fragmentation of ties between people or entities, as seen in narratives of war and political division [7, 8, 9, 10]. This dual capacity to express both physical and emotional disjunction enriches its literary resonance, making "sunder" a powerful term in portraying transformation and irrevocable change [11, 12, 13].
- Here are sever'd lips, Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar Should sunder such sweet friends.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - Faith, yes: Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - Not I. No, God forbid that I should wish them sever'd Whom God hath join'd together; ay, and 'twere pity To sunder them that yoke
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - 45:2: "I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron."
— from Fifteen Years with the Outcast by Fflorens Roberts - 'God cut the gates of iron in sunder' (Psa 107:16).
— from Works of John Bunyan — Complete by John Bunyan - For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.
— from The suppressed Gospels and Epistles of the original New Testament of Jesus the Christ, Complete by William Wake - We sunder the walls, and lay open the inner city.
— from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil - Could I not have riven his body in sunder and strewn it on the waves?
— from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil - Stir up thy teeming breast, sunder the peace they have joined, and sow seeds of quarrel; let all at once desire and demand and seize on arms.'
— from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil - The due time of battle will arrive, call it not forth, when furious Carthage shall one day sunder the Alps to hurl ruin full on the towers of Rome.
— from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil - And then by one assent Sir Gaheris and Sir Dinadan went betwixt them, and departed them in-sunder.
— from Le Morte d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Sir Thomas Malory - He and his love were together at last, soon to be united in a bond that only death could sunder.
— from In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince by Evelyn Everett-Green - But now are we broken in sunder, and the bonds of our bones are loosed, and our thoughts lie in the dust.”
— from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson