Literary notes about gestation (AI summary)
The term "gestation" has been employed in literature to capture both literal and metaphorical processes of development. In some contexts, it describes the biological period of development, as seen in discussions of animal gestation—calculating the pregnancy of a mongrel ([1]), noting variations in dogs and wolves ([2], [3], [4]), and even reflecting on modified gestational periods in fables ([5]). In other instances, authors extend the concept metaphorically to signify the slow and deliberate process of creative or mythical emergence: Walt Whitman muses about an artist emerging from America's own "gestation" ([6], [7]), Jules Verne alludes to the challenging birth of a novel ([8]), and James George Frazer recounts a myth where nature itself undergoes a gestational period, giving rise to life ([9]). Similarly, Kersey Graves employs the term to symbolize a divine transition through processes akin to gestation and birth ([10]).
- Hunter found that the gestation of a mongrel from wolf and dog ('Phil.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - 42 Tessier, who has closely attended to this subject, allows a difference of four days in the gestation of the dog.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - It has been objected that our domestic dogs cannot be descended from wolves or jackals, because their periods of gestation are different.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - Cuvier found the period of gestation of the wolf to be ('Dict.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - The period of gestation varies much, and has been modified in a fixed manner in one or two cases.
— from The Fables of Aesop by Aesop - Will America ever have such an artist out of her own gestation, body, soul? Sunday, April 17.
— from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman - (The gestation, the youth, the knitting preparations, are now over, and it is full time for definite purpose, result.)
— from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman - In all, the novel had a difficult gestation.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - He was said to have been born from a myrrh-tree, the bark of which bursting, after a ten months’ gestation, allowed the lovely infant to come forth.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - It represents Almighty God as coming into the world through the hands of a midwife, as passing through the process of gestation and parturition.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves
