Literary notes about nebula (AI summary)
The term "nebula" in literature oscillates between vivid metaphor and precise scientific description. In Stendhal's work, love is likened to the Milky Way, with its myriad of "little stars" hinting that each beam of affection might be as transient and mysterious as a nebula [1]. Hardy, on the other hand, employs the word to capture the ephemeral quality of light as it fades into the dark, describing it as dissolving into a nebulous form [2]. Meanwhile, Emerson provides the reader with a straightforward astronomical definition, positioning the nebula as a luminous expanse of stars and gases in the vastness of space [3]. Dewey further blurs the boundaries between the poetic and the scientific by pondering whether a nebula might signify a cosmic collision or disintegration, thereby enriching its metaphorical potential [4].
- [Pg 7] Love resembles what we call the Milky Way in heaven, a gleaming mass formed by thousands of little stars, each of which may be a nebula.
— from On Love by Stendhal - They placed the calf beside its mother again, took up the lantern, and went out, the light sinking down the hill till it was no more than a nebula.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy - In astronomy a nebula is a luminous patch in the heavens far beyond the solar system, composed of a mass of stars or condensed gases.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Does it indicate asteroid, or comet, or a new-forming sun, or a nebula resulting from some cosmic collision or disintegration?
— from How We Think by John Dewey
