Literary notes about sustenance (AI summary)
The term “sustenance” is wielded in literature not only as a reference to physical nourishment but also as a potent metaphor for spiritual or emotional support. In some writings, the word is employed in its literal sense to denote the food that wards off starvation and maintains life, as in references to the essential nourishment provided by nature or human effort ([1], [2], [3]). Meanwhile, other works extend the meaning to encapsulate intellectual, moral, or even divine support, suggesting that sustenance may also be the fuel for the spirit or the mind ([4], [5], [6]). Authors thus use the term in varied contexts—from the tangible, life-sustaining provision of food to the intangible nourishment that feeds human resilience—underscoring its multifaceted role in the human experience ([7], [8], [9]).
- nô þu ymb mînes ne þearft lîces feorme leng sorgian, thou needest no longer have care for the sustenance of my body , 451 .—2) banquet : dat.
— from I. Beówulf: an Anglo-Saxon poem. II. The fight at Finnsburh: a fragment. - It was fortunate that there was an abundance of game, for what we secured by hunting was the sustenance on which we chiefly relied during the winter.”
— from A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States by George T. Flom - well and fairly earned, he was prospering, he was furnishing shelter and sustenance to his family, he was adding his mite to the wealth of the nation.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain - So we must keep apart, You there, I here, With just the door ajar That oceans are, And prayer, And that pale sustenance, Despair!
— from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete by Emily Dickinson - In his relations with them, he seemed to be in quest of mental food, not heart-sustenance.
— from The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne - In this case there was no material object to feed upon, but the eye of reason saw a probability of mental sustenance in the shape of gossip.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - The other service was thy chosen task, To be a lyer in four hundred mouths; For lying is thy sustenance, thy food.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton - Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman - Nigher still, if possible, I myself have been, and am to-day indebted to such help for my very sustenance, clothing, shelter, and continuity.
— from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman
