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Literary notes about corroboration (AI summary)

In literature, the term "corroboration" is used to signify the process of verifying or supporting a claim by providing additional evidence, whether through direct observation or testimonial reinforcement. Authors use it to lend credibility to historical accounts—as when modern scholars extract supporting details from Herodotus’ narratives [1]—and to intensify the reliability of character testimonies, as seen in dialogues that seek physical or contextual confirmation of facts [2] or observations [3]. At times, corroboration is invoked in discussions of causality and logical reasoning to underscore a point, while in other instances it functions as a means to challenge the solidity of a narrative by highlighting missing or insufficient supporting details [4], [5]. Whether describing tangible proof in mystery settings [6] or reinforcing abstract ideas, contemporaries in literature deploy "corroboration" as a versatile tool that enriches both the factual and emotional dimensions of the narrative [7].
  1. Thus the modern scientific historian, with other means of corroboration, can sometimes learn from Herodotus more than Herodotus himself knew.
    — from An Account of Egypt by Herodotus
  2. If your ladyship would wish to have the boy produced in corroboration of this statement, I can lay my hand upon him at any time."
    — from Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  3. Sometimes direct observation furnishes corroboration, as in the case of the pole on the boat.
    — from How We Think by John Dewey
  4. Is it simply corroboration that we look for?
    — from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
  5. The credibility of a story on which Christianity rests is bolstered up by prophecy in default of contemporary corroboration.
    — from When Were Our Gospels Written? by Charles Bradlaugh
  6. I confess that the sight of it consoled me, for it was really the first direct corroboration, slight as it was, of the truth of his story.
    — from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
  7. Here at last was tangible corroboration.
    — from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

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