Literary notes about soporific (AI summary)
The term soporific is often employed to describe agents or atmospheres that induce sleep, serving both a literal and metaphorical purpose in literature. Authors refer to it when discussing substances with sleep-inducing properties, such as medicinal draughts or naturally sedative herbs, which are sometimes portrayed as potent enough to render a character unconscious [1] [2] [3]. Equally, soporific is used to describe environments or narrative styles that lull the senses and weaken the mind’s alertness, whether it be the monotony of a journey or the tedious nature of drowsy rhetoric [4] [5] [6]. In some texts the term even bridges the gap between the physical and the intellectual realms: its application extends from the literal effect of a soporific potion to the figurative numbing influence of dull prose or performance [7] [8]. Across these varied contexts, soporific encapsulates that dual power to either enervate the body or to metaphorically dampen the spirit, making it a versatile descriptor in literary discourse.
- Plato and Demosthenes {146a} also speak of mandragora as a soporific.
— from Custom and Myth by Andrew Lang - Anodyne, sedative, and soporific.— Dose. One, as required.
— from Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume II by Richard Vine Tuson - King Basilius drinks a soporific draught; he is given up [253] as dead.
— from The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare by J. J. (Jean Jules) Jusserand - Unfortunately I have to do all my reading in bed, and I don't find the book as soothing a soporific as most new books.
— from The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes by Israel Zangwill - It may, indeed, be generally argued that the religious teachers acted as a social soporific.
— from Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham by Harold Joseph Laski - A faint hum, as of invisible insects, gradually pervaded the school; the more persistent droning of a large bee had become dangerously soporific.
— from Cressy by Bret Harte - They are stomachic, tonic, and soporific.
— from The Curiosities of Ale & Beer: An Entertaining History (Illustrated with over Fifty Quaint Cuts) by John Bickerdyke - The soporific power of music is that which is chiefly commended in old Irish literature.
— from More Celtic Fairy Tales
