Literary notes about gibbering (AI summary)
The word "gibbering" is often employed by authors to evoke a sense of frantic, disjointed energy or madness, whether applied to a person, creature, or even abstract forces. In John Buchan’s work, it is used to suggest a sudden, almost inexplicable outburst of disintegration from a character [1]. Thomas Carlyle uses it to depict chaotic historical specters, suggesting that this mad babble is an intrinsic part of the collapse of order [2, 3]. In Edgar Allan Poe’s narrative, the term becomes a chilling, almost foreboding auditory cue that accompanies supernatural stimulation [4, 5]. Meanwhile, H. G. Wells and J. M. Barrie integrate the term to provide a touch of wild animalistic behavior or to underscore the terror lurking in the unfamiliar, thereby blurring the line between humor and horror [6, 7, 8]. Even James Joyce employs "gibbering" to blur boundaries between the human and the animalistic, encapsulating the existential chaos underlying modern experience [9, 10]. Overall, the term functions as a powerful linguistic tool that unifies disparate literary contexts with its vivid connotations of frantic, unstructured communication.
- I told of my boredom in London, and the night I had come back to find Scudder gibbering on my doorstep.
— from The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan - Through some section of History, Nineteen spectre-chimeras shall flit, speaking and gibbering; till Oblivion swallow them.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - it has all fled, like a gibbering troop of ghosts, like the phantasms of a dying brain!
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - Suddenly there came an icy hand upon my forehead, and an impatient, gibbering voice whispered the word “Arise!” within my ear.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe - Suddenly there came an icy hand upon my forehead, and an impatient, gibbering voice whispered the word “Arise!” within my ear.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - Then came the yelp of a dog, very faint, and a chattering and gibbering, the snap of a whip, and voices.
— from The island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells - Then I came upon the creature squatting up in a tree and gibbering at two of the Kanakas who had been teasing him.
— from The island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells - “The cabin's as black as a pit,” Cecco said, almost gibbering, “but there is something terrible in there: the thing you heard crowing.”
— from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie - (With gibbering baboon’s cries he jerks his hips in the cynical spasm.)
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - (Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering, Booloohoom.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce