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Literary notes about dread (AI summary)

The term "dread" in literature is employed to evoke a multifaceted emotional state that ranges from personal anxiety and reluctance to a profound, almost reverential fear of the unknown. For instance, a character’s internal conflict about change is rendered through a palpable dread that highlights personal vulnerability ([1]), while epic narratives evoke dread to underscore the intimidating force of fate or divine influence ([2], [3]). In some works, it captures an existential terror that borders on awe, as seen in passages that question the overwhelming power of destiny or the supernatural ([4], [5]). At times, this word is used more subtly to express the anxiety of living with societal expectations or the burden of unforeseen consequences ([6], [7]), demonstrating its capacity to enrich both the inner life of characters and the larger mythic or moral landscapes they inhabit.
  1. But his dread of any change in Dorothea was stronger than his discontent, and he began to speak again in a tone of mere explanation.
    — from Middlemarch by George Eliot
  2. Too long thy father would his friend detain; I dread his proffer'd kindness urged in vain."
    — from The Odyssey by Homer
  3. "Then we entered the Straits in great fear of mind, for on the one hand was Scylla, and on the other dread Charybdis kept sucking up the salt water.
    — from The Odyssey by Homer
  4. The pillars of heaven tremble, and dread at his beck.
    — from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete
  5. The fourth is reverent dread: for there is no dread that fully pleaseth God in us but reverent dread.
    — from Revelations of Divine Love
  6. I hope your sorrowing party were at church yesterday, and have no longer that to dread.
    — from The Letters of Jane Austen by Jane Austen
  7. Stephen was not by her now; she was alone with her own memory and her own dread.
    — from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

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