Literary notes about VAST (AI summary)
The word “vast” is often employed to evoke overwhelming magnitude—both in the physical and the figurative sense. It can describe sprawling landscapes and boundless environments, as when expansive rice plantations [1] or an endless sheet of water [2] come vividly to life. At the same time, writers use “vast” to underscore intangible qualities such as enormous amounts of emotion, duty, or even abstract ideas; for instance, it characterizes the profound necessity of heart and life [3] and the weighty influence of political affairs or heroic deeds [4]. This dual capacity to highlight both literal and metaphorical enormity gives “vast” a timeless flexibility, enriching narratives from epic journeys [5] to thoughtful social commentaries [6].
- He went on till he found himself in the fields, in the midst of vast rice plantations.
— from Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne - How was it that I was able to look upon that vast sheet of water instead of being plunged in utter darkness?
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne - what was once to me Mere matter of the fancy, now hath grown The vast necessity of heart and life.
— from Idylls of the King by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson - The vast number of very ordinary men who occupy public stations is quite as attributable to these causes as to the bad choice of the democracy.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville - I saw the shining train with vast delight, And Priam’s goodly person pleas’d my sight:
— from The Aeneid by Virgil - The vast extent of territory occupied by the Anglo-American republics has given rise to doubts as to the maintenance of their Union.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville
