Literary notes about mutilated (AI summary)
The term “mutilated” appears in literature as a vivid descriptor that spans both the physical and the metaphorical. In some works it evokes stark images of bodily disfigurement and violent destruction, as seen in descriptions of flayed lovers and shattered limbs ([1], [2], [3]), while in others it portrays a fragmented or altered state of texts and ideas, suggesting that original forms have been radically distorted or lost ([4], [5], [6]). Its versatility is underscored by its use to characterize not only the ruinous impact of war and cruelty on individuals ([7], [8]) but also the compromised integrity of manuscripts and narratives ([9], [10]), thereby lending an atmosphere of decay and sorrow to both concrete and abstract subjects. This dual capacity to articulate both physical injury and the mutilation of creative or historical expression renders the word a powerful tool in evoking the sense of irreparable change or loss.
- Good morning, my poor flayed, mutilated darling.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud - Ah, Bill, Bill, we have seen a sight of times, us two, since I lost them two talons,” holding up his mutilated hand.
— from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson - Blood was flowing from his head and face; his face was crushed, mutilated and disfigured.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - We must remember, however, that our present version of Faustus is very much mutilated, and does not preserve the play as Marlowe wrote it.
— from English Literature by William J. Long - It was like making one's way through a mutilated manuscript.
— from The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham - [ Contents ] XII PAGE 135 The text here is much mutilated, and can only be restored by ingenious conjecture.
— from The Story of Beowulf, Translated from Anglo-Saxon into Modern English Prose - “At four o’clock our square was a perfect hospital being full of dead, dying, and mutilated soldiers.
— from The Waterloo Roll Call by Charles Dalton - The sufferers fell to the ground like singed flies, mutilated but not slain, and imploring their executioners to despatch them speedily.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - "Since you have preserved my narration," said he, "I would not that a mutilated one should go down to posterity."
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - These faults have led some critics to consider the work as it now exists merely a mutilated abridgment of the original.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius
