Literary notes about damask (AI summary)
Throughout literary works, “damask” is employed both as a factual descriptor for luxurious textiles and as evocative symbolism imbued with elegance and richness. It appears to designate finely woven fabrics in everyday objects such as tablecloths and curtains—often noted for their intricate patterns and historical associations with opulent households [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]—while also lending vivid metaphorical power in poetry and prose, where it conveys delicate beauty or romantic blushing, as when a character’s cheek or a rose is described as “damask red” [6, 7, 8, 9]. In certain historical and theatrical contexts, it marks not only physical fabric but also the splendor of sumptuous attire and regal emblems, thereby enhancing both domestic and symbolic imagery [10, 11, 12, 13].
- 5-8 and 3-4 Single and Double DAMASK NAPKINS, from $1 to $3.50 per doz. DAMASK TABLE CLOTHS, all sizes, from $1.50 to $2.75 each.
— from Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 by Various - One or two dozen damask tablecloths, plain, with monogram, and a dozen napkins to match each.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post - One tablecloth, six or eight yards long, of finest but untrimmed damask with embroidered monogram on each side, or four corners.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post - Also a plain damask tablecloth (which must always be put on top of a thick table felt) is correct for dinner but not for luncheon.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post - Every cover was taken off, and the apartment blazed forth in yellow silk damask and a brilliantly-flowered carpet.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell - There are two Species of the wild rose both quinque petallous and of a damask red, but the one is as large as the common red rose of our guardens.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis - She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought;
— from Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will by William Shakespeare - Slight tinge of damask revisiting cheek.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - O, Lady Flora, let me speak: A pleasant hour has past away While, dreaming on your damask cheek, The dewy sister-eyelids lay.
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson - Go to: 'Shalt give his worship a new damask suit Upon the premises. SUB.
— from The Alchemist by Ben Jonson - Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different to what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern—much less gloomy.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - His back and breast Well-temper’d steel and scaly brass invest: The cuishes which his brawny thighs infold Are mingled metal damask’d o’er with gold.
— from The Aeneid by Virgil - The tabard of a pursuivant is of damask silk; that of a herald, of satin; and that of a king of arms, of velvet.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
