Literary notes about affect (AI summary)
In literature, the word "affect" is a versatile term that often denotes the influence or impact one element has on another, whether it be emotions, decisions, or broader phenomena. Authors use it to describe how circumstances, qualities, or ideas sway an individual's state of mind or destiny, as seen when personal attributes "affect" a character's doubts or emotions ([1], [2]). It is also employed in a more technical sense to discuss the causal relationship between variables or natural phenomena, such as weather patterns or molecular behavior ([3], [4]). Furthermore, "affect" can imply a deliberate display or pretense, as when a character assumes an air or attitude to sway observers or disguise genuine intentions ([5], [6]). This multifaceted usage illustrates the word’s capacity to connect abstract influences with tangible outcomes, enriching the narrative layers within literary texts ([7], [8]).
- Nevertheless, certain attributes which at first amused and entertained his fancy began to affect him with grave doubts.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales by Bret Harte - The fresh air began to affect him, set his mind working.
— from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - These electrons and protons constitute the earth’s radiation belts and they affect weather and other phenomena on Earth.
— from Rockets, Missiles, and Spacecraft of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution - Medium stimuli affect the majority of the molecules, but affect fewer and fewer in proportion as they have already diminished their number.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James - why it cannot choose but take, if the circumstances miscarry not: but, tell me ingenuously, dost thou affect my sister Bridget as thou pretend'st?
— from Every Man in His Humor by Ben Jonson - Yet since you are pleased to affect ignorance, I will instruct you as if you were the veriest baby in Lineland.
— from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott - What it concerns us to know about them is merely the service or injury they are able to do us, and in what fashion they can affect our lives.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - For, after all, the principal object of a dramatic piece is to be performed, and its chief merit is to affect the audience.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville
