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Literary notes about frame (AI summary)

The word "frame" is employed in literature in multiple dimensions, often serving as both a literal and metaphorical device. At times, it denotes a physical structure—a tool for constructing images or defining spaces, as seen when a mirror's border is likened to an oyster-shell frame [1] or when architecture is described in terms of its wood and window frames [2], [3]. In other instances, it metaphorically expresses mental or emotional states, capturing the transient mood of a character; for example, a character might be described as being in a certain "frame of mind" imbued with hope or despair [4], [5], [6]. Moreover, the term extends to the conceptual realm, connoting the act of constructing, organizing, or arranging thoughts and narratives, such as when one "frames" words to articulate harsh sentiments [7] or arranges ideas as though setting them within a deliberate pictorial frame [8]. This versatility highlights the word’s enduring power to bridge tangible reality with the abstract contours of thought and emotion.
  1. Almost as soon as it shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror I was out of bed, and out with little Em’ly, picking up stones upon the beach.
    — from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  2. marco , m. , frame; doorcase, windowcase.
    — from Heath's Modern Language Series: The Spanish American Reader by Ernesto Nelson
  3. It was a frame of wood, raised three inches from the ground, about seven feet long and four wide, moving upon twenty-two wheels.
    — from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift
  4. I sat down in that chilly darkness in a very miserable frame of mind.
    — from The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
  5. This was not a proper frame of mind to approach any undertaking; an improper frame of mind not only for him, I said, but for any man.
    — from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
  6. it's very pretty," asked David, who seemed to be in an inquiring frame of mind that day.
    — from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott
  7. She delayed to speak, and at last she spoke haltingly, hesitating to frame in words the harshness of her thought.
    — from Martin Eden by Jack London
  8. Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame.
    — from Orthodoxy by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

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