Literary notes about impure (AI summary)
The term “impure” is employed in literature to evoke a wide range of connotations—from spiritual and moral degradation to physical contamination. In many classical and religious texts, it denotes a departure from sanctity and ritual cleanliness, as seen in discussions about impure foods or untouchable states often linked to religious observance ([1], [2], [3]). At the same time, authors like Milton and Hardy extend the term into the natural world, describing landscapes and substances with an “impure” quality that hints at estrangement from an idealized purity ([4], [5]). Additionally, impure is used to characterize flawed human actions or intentions, suggesting that moral corruption or licentious desire taints both thought and behavior ([6], [7], [8]). Even in technical or scientific contexts, the word underscores a mixture or contamination that separates the genuine from the adulterated ([9], [10]). This varied usage highlights the word’s enduring function as a metaphor for anything that deviates from an ideal of unblemished purity.
- [1055] he is even sometimes bound to a rigorous fast, [1056] or must eat impure foods.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - It was only when they no longer understood the meaning of the rite that the sacrosanct animal was considered impure ( op.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - Among certain Semitic peoples, pork was forbidden, but it was not always known exactly whether this was because it was a pure or an impure thing
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - The shale, like the Lower Ludlow, often contains elliptical concretions of impure earthy limestone.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton - The fields were sallow with the impure light, and all were tinged in monochrome, as if beheld through stained glass.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy - Every impure thought, deliberately yielded to, is a keen lance transfixing that sacred and loving heart.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce - Yet did not this matrimony endure long; but Bernice left Poleme, and, as was said, with impure intentions.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus - Curb this thy unrighteous and impure lust, from which our house will get nothing but reproach and disgrace."
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus - Alkalim′eter, an instrument for ascertaining the quantity of free alkali in any impure specimen, as in the potashes of commerce.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. A to Amide by Various - * An impure carbonate of soda.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson
