Literary notes about Unction (AI summary)
Literary authors employ "unction" in diverse ways, ranging from its literal use in religious anointings to its figurative employment as a marker of solemnity or artifice. In sacred texts and ritual descriptions, unction refers to the act of anointing with oil—a practice seen in rites such as extreme unction during the sacrament of the last rites [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] and in ceremonial consecrations found in biblical injunctions [6, 7, 8]. Meanwhile, the term also appears in more metaphorical contexts, where it characterizes a speech or behavior as imbued with a honeyed, persuasive quality or even insincere flattery [9, 10, 11, 12]. This duality, bridging the sacred and the rhetorical, illustrates how the word has evolved to evoke both a tangible religious ritual and a nuanced literary tone [13, 14, 15].
- After taking the communion, the service of extreme unction followed.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The next day the sick man received the sacrament and extreme unction.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - When it was concluded, and extreme unction had been administered, the friar withdrew.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe - In that time I must receive the extreme unction of the Church.”
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales by Bret Harte - He had been in almost perfect health and it was at the moment of death that he received extreme unction.
— from Rizal's own story of his life by José Rizal - And thou shalt take the oil of unction and anoint the tabernacle with its vessels, that they may be sanctified: 40:10.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - And thou shalt pour the oil of unction upon his head: and by this rite shall he be consecrated. 29:8.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - And thou shalt make the holy oil of unction, an ointment compounded after the art of the perfumer, 30:26.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - smooth the ruffled brow of care, temper the wind to the shorn lamb, lay the flattering unction to one's soul.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget - With these words, a long benediction delivered with much unction informed me that my audience was at an end.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - Dear, even in the abstract, is such flattering unction always no doubt to the soul!
— from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman - We must not lay the flattering unction to our souls that the proclamation will be of any use if we are beaten and have a dissolution of the Union.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) by Ida Husted Harper - My guru finally spoke with solemn unction.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - The conception has been stated with even greater unction by the French writer, Frédéric Bastiat.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - I’ll come home sighing like a furnace, and full of the savour and unction of dear Mr. Blatant’s discourse—’ ‘Mr. Leighton,’ said I, dryly.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
