Literary notes about revocation (AI summary)
The term "revocation" has been employed in literature to denote the formal withdrawal or annulment of privileges, rights, or laws, often marking a pivotal historical or personal transformation. In George Eliot's use, for example, it engenders a philosophical inquiry into what is lost or preserved through acts of annulment [1]. Meanwhile, in religious and political contexts—as with the repeated allusions in Fox's work—the concept is closely tied to the dramatic and often brutal reversals of policy, notably illustrated by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes under Louis XIV, which had far-reaching effects on France's Protestant community [2, 3, 4, 5]. Stendhal, in a similar vein, frames revocation as a transformative moment in personal identity by linking it to a conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism following the revocation of the edict [6]. Through such varied usage, literature presents "revocation" both as a mechanism of societal change and as a catalyst for individual transformation.
- and what was revoked and what not revoked—and was the revocation for better or for worse?
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - The persecutions occasioned by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, took place under Louis XIV.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - From the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, to the French Revolution in 1789.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - The protestants, upon this unexpected edict, sent a deputy to the duke to obtain its revocation, or at least to have it moderated.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - The persecution in this protestant part of France continued with very little intermission from the revocation of the edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - He was born a Protestant, not, as has been thought, a Jew, but became a Catholic after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685).
— from On Love by Stendhal