Literary notes about bliss (AI summary)
The term bliss in literature is deployed with remarkable flexibility, serving as a marker for divine ecstasy, intimate joy, or ironic contrast. It often denotes a state of perfect fulfillment or heavenly pleasure, as seen in spiritual exultations and descriptions of eternal happiness ([1], [2], [3], [4]), while concurrently appearing in contexts where its attainment is fraught with struggle or loss ([5], [6], [7]). Bliss may represent an idyllic union with a beloved or a transcendent moment in everyday life ([8], [9], [10]), yet it can also be portrayed as elusive or bittersweet, as in the suggestion that “ignorance is bliss” ([11], [12]). This multiplicity in usage underscores bliss not only as an ultimate reward but also as an ever-receding ideal, a theme resonating throughout both epic narratives and reflective meditations on the human condition ([13], [14]).
- Yea, and so far forth, that his falling and his woe, that he hath taken thereby, shall be turned into high and overpassing worship and endless bliss.
— from Revelations of Divine Love - Ah! Lord Jesus, King of bliss, how shall I be eased?
— from Revelations of Divine Love - And thou shalt come up above, and thou shalt have me to thy meed, and thou shalt be fulfilled of joy and bliss .
— from Revelations of Divine Love - The highest bliss that is, is to have Him in clarity of endless life, Him verily seeing, Him sweetly feeling, all-perfectly having in fulness of joy.
— from Revelations of Divine Love - Those six weeks had for her been a time of the utmost bliss and the utmost misery.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - For him, there was now no self-bliss, only pain and confused anger.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence - Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - She could picture at that moment no greater bliss on earth than possession of the beloved one.
— from The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin - "Beloved husband," she breathed—the bliss of it—the sheer bliss . . .
— from The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim - For her, he was the kernel of life, to touch him alone was bliss.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence - “Where ignorance is bliss ’Tis folly to be wise.”
— from Moral Principles and Medical Practice: The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence by Charles Coppens - Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise ."
— from Notes and Queries, Number 84, June 7, 1851
A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various - Bliss should be neither too easy nor too hard to be won.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - An illusory image of some vague future bliss—born of a dream and shaped by fancy—floats before our eyes; and we search for the reality in vain.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer