Literary notes about alteration (AI summary)
Writers use the word "alteration" both literally and metaphorically to denote changes that occur gradually or in sudden bursts. It can describe shifts in a character’s inner life or outward demeanor [1, 2, 3], adjustments in circumstance or fortune [4, 5, 6], as well as revisions and emendations in texts themselves [7, 8, 9]. Some authors explore alteration as a process of transformation affecting identity and perception [10, 11, 12], while others invoke it to indicate modifications in physical settings or detailed arrangements [13, 14, 15]. In each instance, the term underscores the idea that change—whether subtle or radical—is integral to the unfolding narrative and the evolution of ideas [16, 17, 18].
- Have you observed any gradual alteration in Papa?’
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - She was weak, and this alteration was rather displayed in looks and voice than in acts; but it was permanent and real.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - He seems disposed to think that the alteration in my companions authorises an alteration in his manners.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney - The death of Maximin seemed to assure the empresses of a favorable alteration in their fortune.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - My uncle's marriage late in life, and the starting of his new home, brought about a marked alteration in his relations to my family.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner - If the acquisition of power in the shape of wealth caused this alteration, that power should they feel as an iron yoke.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - It is valuable, however, as the editio princeps of ten of the sonnets and it contains one important alteration in the Ode on the Nativity.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton - The final text is, with the exception of one alteration which will be noticed, precisely that of 1842, so there is no trouble with variants.
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson - I found this machine, however, to require considerable alteration before it could be adapted to the purposes to which I intended making it applicable.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - This is the reason why I have altered the formula of this principle—an alteration which shows very clearly the nature of an analytical proposition.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant - And it is really not egotism, because, as I say, since those days my identity has undergone an entire alteration.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - But this new interpretation was really an alteration and even a corruption of the primitive conception.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - It is necessary she should know it, that you may take the steps proper to the alteration of your circumstances.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving - He found very regularly an immediate deflection of the galvanometer, indicating an abrupt alteration of the intra-cerebral temperature.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James - Fourthly, from the Alteration or succession it selfe.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes - If they have ceased, summon your antagonists to declare the reason of this strange alteration.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - [195] At a trial a circumstantial and accurate attempt was made to discover whether it was a significant alteration to bite a man’s ear off.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross - As often as I proposed something with regard to some intended piece of work or alteration, I got the identical reply—“It won’t do, sir.”
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross
