Literary notes about breed (AI summary)
The term "breed" in literary texts is notably versatile, functioning both as a descriptor of literal reproduction and as a metaphor for the generation of consequences or qualities. In works like [1] and [2], it identifies specific animal lineages cultivated for distinct purposes, while in passages such as [3] and [4] the word captures the idea of negative outcomes emerging from a given situation—for instance, troubles that "breed" further troubles or sorrow. Authors also apply the term to human lineages and characteristics, sometimes to laud noble descent as seen in [5] and other times to denote pejorative distinctions, as with the reference to a "half-breed" in [6]. Moreover, its use extends to natural phenomena, where even the sun is depicted as having the capacity to "breed" maggots ([7], [8]), thereby reinforcing its broad symbolic reach from the tangible to the metaphorical in literature.
- I took with me six cows and two bulls alive, with as many ewes and lambs, intending to carry them into my own country, and propagate the breed.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift - Beaufort has always kept a racing stable, and he had better breed trotting horses.
— from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton - Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
— from Macbeth by William Shakespeare - The reader will observe peculiarities in our official society; and he will observe also, an instance of how, in new countries, murders breed murders.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain - Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - The half-breed shrugged his broad shoulders.
— from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle - For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god, kissing carrion,——Have you a daughter?
— from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare - II.27 For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god, kissing carrion,——Have you a daughter?
— from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare