Literary notes about mark (AI summary)
Across literary works, "mark" emerges with striking versatility, functioning as both a physical indication and a symbolic signifier. It may denote a literal trace or label, as when a beekeeper chalks a mark on a hive to indicate its status ([1]), or when diacritical marks indicate long vowels ([2]). At times, it underscores identity or reputation, standing in as a proper name that carries narrative weight, as with Mark Wood or Mark Antony ([3], [4]). In other contexts, the term commands attention or signals a noteworthy distinction—as when a character is urged to "mark well" a detail, or when a gesture or object becomes emblematic of a deeper truth ([5], [6]). Thus, "mark" is used to capture both the tangible and abstract, seamlessly weaving physical, personal, and interpretive layers throughout literary texts.
- The beekeeper closes the hive, chalks a mark on it, and when he has time tears out its contents and burns it clean.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - Explanation of the Vowel Accenting In general, Harrison and Sharp use circumflex accents over vowels to mark long vowels.
— from I. Beówulf: an Anglo-Saxon poem. II. The fight at Finnsburh: a fragment. - Mark Wood was the consumptive labourer whom I mentioned before.
— from Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë - Mark Antony, here, take you Caesar’s body.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - Mark well: If't be not as't should be, Blame the bad Cutter, and not me.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton - Take care their fathers don’t turn up—mark that—take care their fathers don’t turn up, and send ‘em back to me to do as I like with, in spite of you.’
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
