Literary notes about envisage (AI summary)
In literature, "envisage" functions as a versatile term that encompasses both literal and metaphorical imagination. Authors use it to describe the act of picturing future scenarios or alternate realities, whether it’s contemplating personal transformation ([1], [2]) or foreseeing broader societal changes ([3], [4]). The word often conveys a deep reflection, as characters mentally construct outcomes of events or internal states, from visualizing the dynamics of relationships ([5], [6]) to mapping abstract notions like ideals and destiny ([7], [8]). At times, "envisage" carries a tone that is both hopeful and apprehensive, urging readers to consider not just what is, but what might be achieved or avoided ([9], [10]).
- Each was absorbed in the effort to envisage the profound changes that had befallen himself in a single night.
— from Mount Music by E. Oe. (Edith Oenone) Somerville - But modesty was a great part of him, and he could not envisage himself as a man likely to gain prizes usually reserved for gallant youth.
— from The Honour of the Clintons by Archibald Marshall - When we can envisage a future noble enough, it will not then be weakness to believe in it.
— from We Moderns: Enigmas and Guesses by Edwin Muir - This principle was, that to understand a people is to envisage its ideal.
— from Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa by Janet B. Montgomery McGovern - Sitting in the stilly duskiness the woman He had made shut her eyes and tried to envisage Him.
— from That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day by Richard Dehan - She could not have sat dumb like this; in misery, but quite able to think things out, to envisage all the dark possibilities of the future.
— from Marriage à la mode by Ward, Humphry, Mrs. - A contrast could then be drawn between these qualities or ideas, which the mind may envisage, and the concrete reality existing beyond.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - No politics, no morals, no thought would be possible, for all these move towards some ideal and envisage a goal to which they presently pass.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Had they thought out a hundred ramifications to such a scenario it would have been hard to envisage any favorable outcome.
— from An Apostate: Nawin of Thais by Steven David Justin Sills - It is necessary to envisage this peril, but it is possible to avert it.
— from Latvia & Russia: One problem of the world-peace considered by Arveds Bergs
