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Literary notes about forms (AI summary)

The word "forms" appears in literature with a remarkable range of meanings, serving as a bridge between the concrete and the abstract. In classical poetry, for example, Homer employs “forms” to evoke the shifting and awe‐inspiring aspects of nature’s power (“dread in all its forms” [1]). By contrast, in technical treatises such as Lane’s Latin grammar texts, "forms" denotes specific linguistic structures and inflections [2, 3, 4]. Philosophers like Plato and Rousseau invoke "forms" to represent unchanging ideals and the very essence of beauty, justice, or even the natural order [5, 6, 7, 8]. Meanwhile, Darwin’s writing uses the term to highlight the diverse array of living entities that populate our world [9, 10, 11]. Across such varied contexts—from poetic imagery and grammatical precision to philosophical abstraction and scientific classification—"forms" demonstrates its versatile ability to capture both tangible and conceptual phenomena.
  1. By age unbroke!—but all-consuming care Destroys perhaps the strength that time would spare: Dire is the ocean, dread in all its forms!
    — from The Odyssey by Homer
  2. Nominative forms and vocative forms are often combined: as, dulcis amīce , H. E. 1, 7, 12, sweet friend .
    — from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane
  3. Other case forms of is are found in inscriptions, as follows: N. EIS , 124 B.C. G. E I VS ,
    — from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane
  4. Also gender forms of adjectives in -i- ‘of two endings’ ( 630 ), except the ablative singular, which ends in -ī .
    — from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane
  5. Geometrical forms and arithmetical ratios furnish the laws according to which the world is created.
    — from Meno by Plato
  6. There they see the divine forms of justice, temperance, and the like, in their unchangeable beauty, but not without an effort more than human.
    — from Meno by Plato
  7. The final proof is supplied by a comparison of the perfect state with actual forms of government.
    — from The Republic of Plato by Plato
  8. I mean, I replied, that there appear to be as many forms of the soul as there are distinct forms of the State.
    — from The Republic of Plato by Plato
  9. During each of these years, over the whole world, the land and the water has been peopled by hosts of living forms.
    — from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin
  10. Thus the appearance of new forms and the disappearance of old forms, both natural and artificial, are bound together.
    — from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin
  11. But in the course of time, the forms dominant in the highest degree, wherever produced, would tend everywhere to prevail.
    — from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin

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