Literary notes about microcosm (AI summary)
In literature, the word "microcosm" is frequently employed as a versatile metaphor to represent a smaller, self-contained system that reflects larger, more complex wholes. For instance, Mary Wollstonecraft depicts individuals and families as embodiments of a broader state structure [1], while Yogananda uses the term to describe a limited, self-imprisoned realm in contrast to the vastness of the universe [2]. Rabelais, in his varied narrative styles, applies "microcosm" both to the intricate play of sounds during a carnival [3] and to the dynamics of social interaction where lending and borrowing mirror a complete model of society [4], underscoring its expansive reach. In a different vein, Twain characterizes a city like Washington as a concentrated showcase of diverse social forms within a mile's radius [5]. Beyond societal reflections, the concept stretches into the domains of both the bodily and the metaphysical, with examples illustrating the body's operations as microcosmic representations of a universal order [6, 7] and highlighting the idea that every individual inherently mirrors the entirety of the world [8, 9]. Additional literary instances extend the metaphor into economic puzzles [10] and personal dramas [11], further cementing "microcosm" as a powerful and multifaceted symbol across genres and eras [12, 13, 14].
- A man has been termed a microcosm; and every family might also be called a state.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft - Like a prodigal child, I had run away from my macrocosmic home and imprisoned myself in a narrow microcosm.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - Never did the bachelors at Avignon in carnival time play more melodiously at raphe than was then played on the catchpole’s microcosm.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - Now let our microcosm be fancied conform to this model in all its members; lending, borrowing, and owing, that is to say, according to its own nature.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - Washington is a microcosm, and one can suit himself with any sort of society within a radius of a mile.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner - Life consisteth in blood, blood is the seat of the soul; therefore the chiefest work of the microcosm is, to be making blood continually.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - The microcosm of the human body is the lesser image of the macrocosm.
— from Timaeus by Plato - The favorite notion of the time was that man was in microcosm that which the universe was in macrocosm.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey - Every one is thus himself in a double aspect the whole world, the microcosm; finds both sides whole and complete in himself.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer - Here, in microcosm, is the sort of economic snarl that arose continually for me and my pupils to solve.
— from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W. E. B. Du Bois - I have seen the human drama from a veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced themselves in microcosm within.
— from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W. E. B. Du Bois - I'd like, myself, such a one to see: Sir Microcosm his name should be.
— from Faust [part 1]. Translated Into English in the Original Metres by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Indeed, here, in microcosm and with differences emphasizing sex equality, is the industrial history of labor in the 19th and 20th centuries.
— from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W. E. B. Du Bois - A microcosm I Reflecting all.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis