Literary notes about radiance (AI summary)
Literary works frequently use the term “radiance” to evoke both the literal shimmer of light and a metaphorical glow that signifies inner beauty, truth, or transcendent power. In classical epics, it is often employed to illustrate nature’s divine luminescence—as when the sea glitters in its quivering radiance [1] or the moon intoxicates with an almost bewitching glow [2]. At other times, authors use “radiance” to suggest a character’s inner warmth or moral brilliance, imbuing them with qualities that light up the darkest night or offer solace to the weary [3, 4, 5]. The word further appears in contexts that discuss the ephemeral beauty of youth and the transformative power of happiness, whether in the gleam of a cherished smile or in the dawning light that promises renewal [6, 7, 8]. Even in more modern narratives, “radiance” continues to bridge the tangible and the abstract, from the blurred glow of electric lights [9] to a visionary light that illuminates the path of inner truth and artistic inspiration [10, 11, 12].
- Breezes blow into the night, and the white moonshine speeds them on; the sea glitters in her quivering radiance.
— from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil - oh, how the moon, intoxicated with radiance, bewilders all the world!’
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway - The others gave more light, he shed more warmth; the truth is, that he possessed all the qualities of a centre, roundness and radiance.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn.”
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic in the full flood of his atrocity preserves a certain lugubriously venerable radiance.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - And in spirit, as even in appearance, she retained to the very last much of the radiance of her youth.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano - And fresh as Spring, for Spring attired; And by the radiance in her face I saw she felt she was admired;
— from The Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore - Levin looked round at her, and was struck by the joyful radiance on her face, and unconsciously her feeling infected him.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - Electric lights, whirring softly, shed a blurred radiance.
— from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane - My soul shall drink its radiance; it shall be diffused throughout my intellectual powers and gleam brightly in every line of poesy that I indite.
— from Twice-told tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne - The sharply etched global outlines faded somewhat at the farthest edges; there I could see a mellow radiance, ever-undiminished.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - The old man’s entire countenance lighted up with indescribable radiance.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
