Literary notes about dank (AI summary)
The word “dank” has been used by numerous authors to evoke a palpable sense of moisture, decay, and often foreboding gloom. In these varied texts, “dank” frequently describes physical sensations—such as the clammy grip in Sherlock Holmes’ world [1] or the sweat and moisture in Wilde’s and Coleridge’s imagery [2][3]—while also serving as a metaphor for more abstract states of desolation or corruption. Authors like John Milton [4] and Charles Dickens [5] use the term to underscore the oppressive atmosphere of their settings, whereas Thomas Hardy and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley employ it to contrast the bleak natural world with more moderate surroundings [6][7]. Across the spectrum from Joyce’s contemplative urban decay [8][9] to Poe’s haunting landscapes [10][11], “dank” emerges as a versatile and evocative descriptor that enriches the tone and mood of these works.
- He looked at me with a last long, questioning gaze, and then, pressing my hand in a cold, dank grasp, he hurried from the room.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - It was dank with clammy sweat.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - My lips were wet, my throat was cold, My garments all were dank; Sure I had drunken in my dreams And still my body drank.
— from Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth - Me in my vow'd Picture the sacred wall declares t' have hung My dank and dropping weeds To the stern God of Sea.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton - Doctor examines the dank carcase, and pronounces, not hopefully, that it is worth while trying to reanimate the same.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens - Then their dank spongy forms closed in upon the sky.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy - the grass shoots up high in the meadows; but they are dank and cold, unfit bed for us.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - BLOOM: When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours? BEN DOLLARD:
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - Their dank hair hung trailed over their brows.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce - Through this dank and gloomy wood we rode some two miles, when the Maison de Sante came in view.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe
