Literary notes about recent (AI summary)
In literature, the adjective "recent" is employed to anchor descriptions in time, often signaling that the subject—whether an object, event, or state—is relatively new or has not long passed. Authors use it to evoke immediacy or contemporaneity, as when Livy depicts fresh wounds in [1] or when Mark Twain refers to a "recent present" in [2]. The term also serves to designate new editions or forward advancements in thought, seen in examples ranging from Verne's technical precision in [3] to Scott’s mention of later editions in [4] and even scientific breakthroughs in [5]. In historical narratives ([6], [7]) and personal recollections ([8], [9]), "recent" links past occurrences to the present context, underscoring the short temporal distance that imbues these details with relevance and vividness.
- He then showed his back disfigured with the marks of stripes still recent.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy - This martial panoply belonged to the true prince—a recent present from Madam Parr the Queen.
— from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain - Indeed, after the most recent calculations this reduction is only .000436 of an atmosphere for each thirty feet of depth.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne - Misprinted "the sound" in the ed. of 1821, and all the more recent eds.
— from The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott - Recent discoveries in regard to the mechanism of biological inheritance have led to the organization of a new applied science, "eugenics."
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - The recent services of that state made them ashamed of delaying relief.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy - The facts which, from our own experience, forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison - It was at this moment that the absurdity of his recent bewilderment struck upon his mind.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - My recent dissipation, and strange remarks, made so soon after his sister’s death, were an insult to her memory.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
