Literary notes about ferment (AI summary)
Literature has long employed the word "ferment" to encapsulate ideas of transformation, energetic stirring, and profound change in both tangible and metaphorical realms. In some texts, it vividly portrays the crystallization of abstract and evolving thoughts into concrete realities—H. G. Wells [1] illustrates ideas emerging from "infinite ferment"—while authors like Charlotte Brontë [2] and Dostoyevsky [3, 4] depict it as the internal, sometimes violent, agitation of the human spirit. Beyond personal experiences, "ferment" is used to describe broader social and political upheavals—for instance, the declaration of revolutionary conflict [5, 6, 7] and the intense ethical and intellectual currents of an era [8, 9]. Additionally, the word appears in literal contexts related to processes of brewing and food preparation [10, 11, 12], thereby bridging the concrete and abstract and confirming its enduring versatility in literature.
- The economic theories that, after infinite ferment, had shaped themselves in Hill's mind, became abruptly concrete at the contact.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - It keeps her lively—it maintains the wholesome ferment of her spirits."
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë - Varvara Petrovna’s faith in everything instantly revived and she was thrown into a violent ferment.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - We’ll set things in a ferment.…
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - 217 At the height of the ferment war was declared between this country and England on June 28, 1812.
— from Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney - In a night the whole State was thrown into a ferment of intense excitement, the storm of vituperation seeming to centre in New York city.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - Mayor Pache with Municipality arrives at the Tuileries Hall of Convention; sent for, Paris being in visible ferment; and gives the strangest news.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - All this must mean a time of intense ethical ferment, of religious heart-searching and intellectual unrest.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois - The religious ferment of the age made a tremendous impression on Bunyan's sensitive imagination.
— from English Literature by William J. Long - Thing to do is to ferment cider!”
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis - Some planters permit the pulped coffee to ferment in water.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - They also ferment readily, although a small percentage of preservative, such as benzoate of soda, will halt spoilage.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers
