Literary notes about temporize (AI summary)
The word "temporize" has been employed in literature to denote a deliberate delay or a strategic procrastination in decision-making and action. In Twain and Warner's work [1], it suggests the necessity of buying time under pressing circumstances. Poe's usage [2] extends the idea to a more personal realm, where individuals, steeped in sorrow, resort to procrastination, revealing a human vulnerability in the face of grief. Kipling [3] presents a modern, almost mundane invocation of the term, implying it as a common response to everyday challenges, while Shakespeare [4] uses it metaphorically, encouraging one to "temporize with the hours" as if to bargain with time itself. Collectively, these examples illustrate how "temporize" has been adapted to express varying nuances of delay, be it tactical, emotional, or poetic.
- He felt now that he must temporize, that he must gain time.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner - I dare say you have often observed this disposition to temporize, or to procrastinate, in people who are labouring under any very poignant sorrow.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - 'Like most people, I'm going to temporize.
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling - Well, you will temporize with the hours.
— from Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare
