Literary notes about dereliction (AI summary)
In literature, the word “dereliction” is deployed to evoke the notion of abandonment—whether it be of duty, principle, or moral responsibility. Authors invoke it to underscore the weight of neglect, casting it in contexts ranging from the personal failure to uphold one’s obligations [1, 2] to overt breaches in public or professional conduct [3, 4]. In some works, it serves as a lament for lost integrity or as a stern rebuke of those who forsake their roles, such as officials or parents failing in their duties [5, 6]. At times, “dereliction” is even offered with a philosophical twist, marking the moment when a character’s commitment to higher ideals gives way to resignation or despair [7, 8]. This layered usage not only highlights a breakdown in responsibility but also deeply resonates with broader themes of honor and accountability across a variety of narrative landscapes [9, 10].
- George Gissing pathetically tells how the spirit of dereliction stole into the life of Godwin Peak.
— from Mushrooms on the Moor by Frank Boreham - Moment by moment faintness and the sense of dereliction grew upon her.
— from The Last Call: A Romance (Vol. 1 of 3) by Richard Dowling - The man who has connived at Richard Darke’s escape, and made money by the connivance, is now more than repentant for his dereliction of duty.
— from The Death Shot: A Story Retold by Mayne Reid - For many natures London has an attractiveness which is all its own, and yet to indulge one's taste for it may be a grave dereliction of duty.
— from Seeing and Hearing by George William Erskine Russell - “What you ask of me is a dereliction of duty, and I am a magistrate before I am a man.”
— from Petty Troubles of Married Life, Complete by Honoré de Balzac - The great dereliction of parents now is, that they do not exercise it; and of children, that they do not recognize it.
— from The Christian Home As it is in the Sphere of Nature and the Church; Showing the Mission, Duties, Influences, Habits, and Responsibilities of Home, its Education, Government, and Discipline; with Hints on "Match Making," and the Relation of Parents to the Marriage Choice of their Children; together with a consideration of the Tests in the Selection of a Companion, Etc. by Samuel Philips - An irritating sense of thirst, and, when I strove to speak or move, an entire dereliction of power, was all I felt.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - God’s wrath on him should and will be terrible indeed for his inhuman dereliction.
— from Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 06, May 29, 1858 - To abandon any part of the inheritance of primitive times would be gross heresy, a fatal dereliction of Christian duty.
— from The English Church in the Eighteenth Century by John Henry Overton - If we do not attempt to realize this ideal we are guilty of a dereliction of the highest moral trust that can devolve upon a nation."
— from Indian speeches (1907-1909) by John Morley
