Literary notes about premeditated (AI summary)
The examples illustrate that "premeditated" is deployed to emphasize meticulous planning, whether in crafting elaborate schemes or devising calculated actions. In literature, its usage ranges from describing the intricate human contrivance of objects, like Hardy’s cunning nose-ring contrivance [1], to marking the deliberateness of nefarious deeds, such as the cold-blooded murder in Christie’s work [2]. The term also extends to more abstract applications—highlighting the deliberate orchestration of events or performances, as seen in Dostoyevsky’s depiction of a crude yet intentional act [3], and in Morrel’s remark about a planned scene in Dumas’s narrative [4]. Whether it underscores acts of treachery, as noted in Hugo’s accounts [5] and [6], or signifies a prearranged deviation from one’s intended course, as Hawthorne observes [7], "premeditated" conveys a sense of conscious, calculated purpose across a spectrum of literary contexts.
- The premeditated human contrivance of the nose-ring was too cunning for impulsive brute force, and the creature flinched.
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy - The murder, he said, was a most premeditated and cold-blooded one.
— from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie - At all events her performance—which was a joke, of course, if rather a crude one,—was premeditated.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - “Then,” said Morrel, “I understand it all, and this scene was premeditated.”
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - What he had premeditated was about to be accomplished; the hour of the heroic falsehood had arrived.
— from The History of a Crime by Victor Hugo - But at the same time it has a species of soul; it is premeditated, it executes a will.
— from The History of a Crime by Victor Hugo - He was musing on the strange influence that had led him away from his premeditated course, and so far into the depths of the wilderness.
— from Mosses from an old manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne
