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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]).
  1. 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
  2. Ah! Lord Jesus, King of bliss, how shall I be eased?
    — from Revelations of Divine Love
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. Those six weeks had for her been a time of the utmost bliss and the utmost misery.
    — from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy
  6. For him, there was now no self-bliss, only pain and confused anger.
    — from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
  7. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.
    — from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  8. 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
  9. "Beloved husband," she breathed—the bliss of it—the sheer bliss . . .
    — from The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
  10. For her, he was the kernel of life, to touch him alone was bliss.
    — from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
  11. “Where ignorance is bliss ’Tis folly to be wise.”
    — from Moral Principles and Medical Practice: The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence by Charles Coppens
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. 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

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