Literary notes about abstruse (AI summary)
In literature, the term "abstruse" is often employed to describe subjects or statements that are deliberately complex, remote from everyday understanding, and requiring a refined intellect to appreciate. Writers use it to evoke the sense of obscurity in matters ranging from intricate mathematical theories ([1]) and legal principles ([2]) to deep metaphysical debates ([3], [4]), suggesting that such topics are reserved for those with exceptional sagacity ([5], [6]). At times, the label not only denotes intellectual difficulty—as when discussions are portrayed as so convoluted that they even cause wagers on their true meaning ([7])—but also carries an ironic or stylistic charm, contributing to the distinctive tone of erudite discourse evident in works by authors such as Dickens and Shelley ([8], [9]).
- She read the phrase over two or three times as though it were some abstruse statement in mathematics.
— from The Vision of Desire by Margaret Pedler - But I had no inclination for the law, even in this less abstruse study of it, which my family approved.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - If you call this metaphysics, and find anything abstruse here, you need only conclude that your turn of mind is not suited to the moral sciences.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume - Duration, time, and eternity, are, not without reason, thought to have something very abstruse in their nature.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 by John Locke - You must have a prodigious sagacity in detecting abstruse matters before other men.
— from The Fable of the Bees; Or, Private Vices, Public Benefits by Bernard Mandeville - It is the work of genius to render difficult matters plain, abstruse thoughts clear.
— from Recreations in AstronomyWith Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work by Henry White Warren - This apparently proved such an abstruse affair that two friends laid a wager as to its real meaning.
— from My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore - In order to excel Vasari, it seems he chose an abstruse mode of writing, in opposition to the plain style of that author.
— from The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 2 (of 6) From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century by Luigi Lanzi - In a thousand ways he smoothed for me the path of knowledge and made the most abstruse inquiries clear and facile to my apprehension.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
