Literary notes about THROE (AI summary)
The term “throe” is employed in literary works to evoke sudden, intense bursts of pain, struggle, or transformation. It often appears to capture both physical convulsions—as in depictions of anguished bodily reactions [1][2][3]—and profound emotional or existential distress [4][5][6]. Writers use the word to mirror life’s inherent turmoil, whether by representing the convulsive pangs of a passionate heart [7][8] or the disruptive force of nature itself [9][10]. Moreover, “throe” can denote the critical, sometimes painful, transitional phases in creative or personal rebirth, lending a rhythmic gravity to the narrative [11][12]. This layered usage reinforces its role as a powerful emblem of both fleeting agony and transformative experience in literature.
- There it seemed to find and rest on some small thing, and then a single throe wrenched his frame as of an anguish beyond all tears.
— from John March, Southerner by George Washington Cable - Not a groan of pain parted his set lips, not a throe, not a sign, betrayed the pain of such a death; only his hand feebly felt for Glauce’s.
— from Quintus Claudius: A Romance of Imperial Rome. Volume 2 by Ernst Eckstein - A deep and convulsive throe shook him to the heart.
— from Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other StoriesTraits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works ofWilliam Carleton, Volume Three by William Carleton - He knew the blackness which is death, the momentary throe of entering it, the shock, the sense of chill, the dumbness.
— from The Second Class Passenger: Fifteen Stories by Perceval Gibbon - The pain caught her like a physical throe.
— from The Reef by Edith Wharton - I do not remember that I felt a single throe of expiring love, the love that had filled my heart to the brim.
— from A Village Ophelia and Other Stories by Anne Reeve Aldrich - The gull sails softly thro' the air, For all is calm and still below; Peace, blessed peace is ev'rywhere, And all regret the recent throe.
— from Canada and Other Poems by T. F. (Thomas Frederick) Young - I like a look of agony, Because I know it 's true; Men do not sham convulsion, Nor simulate a throe.
— from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete by Emily Dickinson - Trembles the earth with feverous throe The wind in fitful tempest blows.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - It was the final throe of the volcano's travail.
— from Doubloons—and the Girl by John Maxwell Forbes - The emotion from which the divining work of art springs is the birth throe of the quick and vigorous organism pregnant with the future.
— from Degeneration by Max Simon Nordau - Sometimes it is represented as the birth-throe and deliverance of all creation through Christ; as Rom. viii.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon by J. B. Lightfoot
