Literary notes about syncope (AI summary)
In literature, syncope serves a dual purpose by capturing both a dramatic medical condition and a stylistic linguistic phenomenon. On one hand, authors employ syncope to depict sudden collapse or fainting—a moment of life suspended or a herald of impending death, as seen in accounts of poisoning, heart failure, or overwhelming shock [1, 2, 3, 4]. On the other hand, the term appears in discussions of language and verse, where it describes the deliberate omission of sounds or letters (for instance, the dropping of vowels) to achieve a desired rhythmic or metrical effect [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. This versatility enables writers to enrich both narrative tension and poetic form, seamlessly intertwining medical imagery with technical linguistic precision.
- Frequently sudden and fatal syncope occurs, due to heart weakness or to the pouring out of fluid into the pleural or the pericardial cavities.
— from Scurvy, Past and Present by Alfred F. Hess - 1. Syncope is death beginning at the heart—in other words, failure of circulation.
— from Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology by W. G. Aitchison (William George Aitchison ) Robertson - 'He had died suddenly from syncope, or heart-failure.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, September 10, 1892 by Various - It was syncope of the heart, and was most likely almost instantaneous.
— from Monica: A Novel, Volume 2 (of 3) by Evelyn Everett-Green - It is the opposite of syncope of vowels ( 110 , 111 ).
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane - Sometimes a vowel drops out by syncope; as,— ārdor for āridor (compare āridus ); valdē for validē (compare validus ).
— from New Latin Grammar by Charles E. (Charles Edwin) Bennett - Disappearance of an initial consonant is sometimes called Aphaeresis , of a medial, Syncope , of a final, Apocope .
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane - Syncope , defined, 111 , 168 , 2508 ; in versification, 2541 .
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane - This verse is a trochaic tetrameter acatalectic, with syncope and protraction in the seventh foot.
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane