Literary notes about sensuous (AI summary)
In literature, the word “sensuous” is employed to evoke both a vivid physicality and the realm of perceptual experience. It frequently describes the rich, tactile qualities of the natural world or human form—for instance, when an author paints a portrait with “full sensuous lips” ([1]) or captures the “sensuous charm for the eyes” of a landscape ([2]). At the same time, it is a critical term in philosophical discussions, where thinkers delineate the domain of sensory intuition from abstract reasoning, asserting that our understanding of objects originates in the “sensuous faculty” ([3], [4], [5]). Moreover, in the realm of art and cultural commentary, “sensuous” serves to underline the inextricable link between material existence and aesthetic beauty, whether in the exuberant celebration of past eras ([6]) or the embodiment of pleasure and physical desire ([7], [8]).
- He possessed a fine dome-like forehead, curling hair, brown eyes, full sensuous lips, and a nose that was straight and strongly moulded.
— from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I by Edmund Spenser - It is one of those delightful spots which have a sensuous charm for the eyes.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - Without the sensuous faculty no object would be given to us, and without the understanding no object would be thought.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant - Time is not a discursive, or as it is called, general conception, but a pure form of the sensuous intuition.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant - And as our intuition is always sensuous, no object ever can be presented to us in experience, which does not come under the conditions of time.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant - Especially the sixteenth century ran riot in sensuous worship.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams - The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
— from The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin - She wanted Jesus to love her deliciously, to take her sensuous offering, to give her sensuous response.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
