Literary notes about retrospection (AI summary)
In literature, retrospection is frequently employed as a means of exploring the inner life through reflective recollection of past experiences. Writers often use it to convey a character’s bittersweet nostalgia or regret, as when past happiness is recalled with both fondness and sorrow ([1], [2], [3]). At times, retrospection underscores the emotional weight of personal history, serving as a counterpoint to the drive toward the future or as a moment of internal reckoning after tumultuous events ([4], [5], [6]). This reflective mood not only enriches character development but also deepens the narrative’s exploration of memory and identity ([7]).
- Thus long, I have cradled my heart in retrospection of past happiness, when hope was.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Tis a lovely flower On memory’s lonely stream, a holy star In retrospection’s sky, a rainbow-gleam Upon the tempest-clouds of life.
— from Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, September 1850 by Various - Yet in the retrospection finds relief, And revels in the luxury of grief...
— from The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 1. Poetry by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron - And would she accept this accident of Ham's as such? Retrospection left me trembling and almost sick.
— from A Far Country — Complete by Winston Churchill - Actions, tremendous and world-wide, had set his vision toward the future; he had been too busy to waste time in retrospection and introspection.
— from The Drums of Jeopardy by Harold MacGrath - The time is but as a speck, yet large enough to justify a pause for retrospection—and a pause it must only be.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass - I am confident that calm reflection, and honest retrospection must be profitable to your mind.”
— from Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2, February 1850 by Various
