Literary notes about innovation (AI summary)
Literary works use “innovation” to signal a break from established norms in ways that can be both laudatory and cautionary. In some texts it marks a creative breakthrough—whether in design, narrative style, or social practice, as when a bold new lighting scheme transforms an old staircase [1] or when engaging columns are employed decoratively [2]—while in other contexts it is portrayed as a risky departure from tradition, potentially undermining established order [3] or inciting moral and political controversy [4]. Authors often deploy the word to capture the ambivalence inherent in change: on one hand, celebrating reform and modernization [5, 6], and on the other, warning that even a minor alteration may lead down a dangerous path of continuous upheaval [7, 8]. Thus, “innovation” in literature becomes a multifaceted symbol, embodying both the promise and the peril of transcending conventional limits [9, 10, 11].
- The startling innovation of lighting the broad oak staircase had likewise been adopted, and at intervals up the stairway
— from Throckmorton: A Novel by Molly Elliot Seawell - But the most radical innovation was the general use of engaged columns as wall-decorations or buttresses.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - There is no greater evil in a state than the spirit of innovation.
— from Laws by Plato - He demonstrated that Antigonus and his party were given to innovation, and were seditious persons.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus - This bold innovation of a woman upon the hitherto unquestioned prerogatives of the clergy, at once caused a tremendous excitement.
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I - And it is asked by what authority this bold and radical innovation was undertaken?
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison - On January 2 I went back to Yedo (as we long continued to call the Eastern capital, being, like most Englishmen, averse to innovation).
— from A Diplomat in Japan by Ernest Mason Satow - Why then should Gaius maintain silence concerning an innovation so much more important than that of which he speaks?
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - His protectorate was to be distinguished by every kind of innovation on the aristocracy.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Mrs. Lynde says they’ve never had a female teacher in Avonlea before and she thinks it is a dangerous innovation.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
