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Literary notes about sorcery (AI summary)

The term "sorcery" in literature has served as a multifaceted symbol, oscillating between the literal and the metaphorical across genres and epochs. In tragedies like Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, it is invoked amid intrigue and suspicion ([1], [2]), while in historical accounts by Mackay it becomes a charge tied to moral and legal transgressions ([3], [4], [5]). Meanwhile, in fairy tales—most notably in Andersen’s works—it is both an explanation for unexplainable events and a marker of wickedness or mystery ([6], [7], [8], [9], [10]). Anthropological and religious studies, such as Frazer’s The Golden Bough, examine sorcery within a framework of positive magic versus taboo, attributing it both creative and prohibitive qualities ([11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]). Other texts, from Dostoyevsky to Kipling and Pushkin, further demonstrate how sorcery can represent both concrete manipulation of unseen forces and complex metaphors for personal and societal influence ([17], [18], [19]).
  1. I do suspect there hath been some sorcery Us'd on the duchess.
    — from The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
  2. Sorcery!
    — from The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
  3. The offences laid to his charge were, sorcery, sodomy, and murder.
    — from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
  4. One, named Kuhlmann, was burned alive at Moscow, in 1684, on a charge of sorcery.
    — from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
  5. After the death of Margaret he was imprisoned at Brussels, on a charge of sorcery.
    — from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
  6. They believed it to be some new sorcery of their wicked step-mother.
    — from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. Andersen
  7. He imagined that some new sorcery was at work.
    — from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. Andersen
  8. Then the robbers knew that this must be the work of an evil spirit or some secret sorcery, and, in a terrible fright, they ran hastily from the spot.
    — from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. Andersen
  9. She sits there with her ugly sorcery.
    — from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. Andersen
  10. And the Viking woman wrote Runic characters against sorcery and spells of sickness, and threw them over the wretched child; but they did no good.
    — from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. Andersen
  11. In various parts of France the charred log is thought to guard the house against sorcery as well as against lightning.
    — from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
  12. But perhaps the most precious of all the virtues of mistletoe is that it affords efficient protection against sorcery and witchcraft.
    — from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
  13. Of that fallacy, sorcery is the positive, and taboo the negative pole.
    — from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
  14. The aim of positive magic or sorcery is to produce a desired event; the aim of negative magic or taboo is to avoid an undesirable one.
    — from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
  15. In short, those negative precepts which we call taboo are just as vain and futile as those positive precepts which we call sorcery.
    — from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
  16. Positive magic or sorcery says, “Do this in order that so and so may happen.”
    — from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
  17. He was free from that spell, that sorcery, that obsession!
    — from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  18. By night prepared for sorcery, And in the bathroom did command To lay two covers secretly.
    — from Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
  19. But this is sorcery!' said the lama.
    — from Kim by Rudyard Kipling

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