Literary notes about evocation (AI summary)
The word "evocation" in literature has been used to capture both the active stimulation of inherent capacities and the unsettling retrieval of the past. In John Dewey's discussion, "evocation" refers to the way superior stimuli can bring about and direct our inner potentials, suggesting that our abilities are awakened and enhanced by external influences [1]. Conversely, James Joyce employs the term in a more eerie, narrative context, where the evocation of a spectral figure from the past serves as a powerful and disconcerting reminder of lost innocence and the darker facets of memory [2].
- We start not so much with superior capacities as with superior stimuli for evocation and direction of our capacities.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey - Gabriel felt humiliated by the failure of his irony and by the evocation of this figure from the dead, a boy in the gasworks.
— from Dubliners by James Joyce
