Literary notes about degenerate (AI summary)
In literature, "degenerate" frequently functions as a pointed descriptor of decline—from a noble or ideal state to one marked by moral, social, or aesthetic decay. Authors deploy the term to communicate a process of degradation, whether referring to a single character’s moral collapse ([1]) or the broader deterioration of culture and institutions ([2], [3]). Sometimes used in a scientific or ironic register—such as an exclamation of astonished dismay ([4])—it can also serve as a cautionary note on the dangers of allowing virtues to devolve into vice ([5], [6]). In historical and rhetorical contexts, the word vividly contrasts past splendor with later corruption, underlining the transformation of once-revered qualities into base or unworthy ones ([7], [8]).
- So I whiffle about this way and that, and sometimes think I am a most degenerate creature."
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott - The latter triumphed because the Greek religion was degenerate (and decadent).
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche - It was not till the days of Ennius and Terence that Rome, founded by a shepherd, and made illustrious by I peasants, began to degenerate.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - He exclaimed scientifically, in the extremity of his astonishment: “The degenerate—by heavens!”
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad - We never ought to allow our instincts of justice to degenerate into mere vindictiveness.
— from Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome - And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?
— from Don Juan by Baron George Gordon Byron Byron - The degenerate Parthians, broken by intestine discord, fled before his arms.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - The baser is he, coming from a king, To shame his hope with deeds degenerate.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
