Literary notes about stagnant (AI summary)
Writers use "stagnant" to evoke both the physical stillness of nature and the metaphorical inertia of society or the human spirit. The term frequently describes water that no longer moves—thin ice edged around stagnant pools or reeking, lifeless water at the edge of a bayou—creating an atmosphere of neglect and decay ([1], [2], [3]). At the same time, authors employ it to critique mental or social complacency, as in expressions of a stagnant mind or a society mired in prejudice and self-satisfaction ([4], [5], [6]). In some passages, however, the image is transformed: a stagnant pool becomes the unlikely source from which a clear, invigorating spring rises, symbolizing renewal emerging from decay ([7], [8]). This duality enriches the imagery and deepens the reader’s experience of both bleakness and the hope of transformation.
- Hoar-frost heavier every morning; and thin ice edged round stagnant pools like layers of mica.
— from The Story of the Trapper by Agnes C. Laut - It was bowl-shaped and at the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we lay, were pools of green-scummed, stagnant water, fringed with bullrushes.
— from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle - On either side of the track, if it deserve the name, was the thick ‘bush;’ and everywhere was stagnant, slimy, rotten, filthy water.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens - "There it is, our airless, stagnant European prison-house of prejudice!"
— from Rough-Hewn by Dorothy Canfield Fisher - Consider the China pride and stagnant self-complacency of mankind.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau - Every man's mind, upon these subjects at least, would become a stagnant pool, covered with the scum of prejudice and meanness.
— from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete ContentsDresden Edition—Twelve Volumes by Robert Green Ingersoll - It was as if a sweet clear spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and risen until at last it swept
— from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - It was as if a sweet clear spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and risen until at last it swept the dark water away.
— from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
