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Literary notes about tractable (AI summary)

The word "tractable" has been employed in literature to capture a sense of pliability and readiness to be influenced, whether referring to people, animals, or even inanimate materials. In some works, characters are depicted as compliant or easy to manage—a trait seen in a faithful husband or a gentle wanderer ([1], [2], [3]). At other times, the word describes animals, such as a mare that is both obedient and rideable ([4], [5]). Its metaphorical use extends to the physical world, with ancient texts noting the inherent malleability of copper compared to iron ([6]). Meanwhile, authors sometimes contrast tractability with stubborn defiance, as with individuals unwilling to be controlled ([7], [8]), or even use it to mark the ease with which groups can be directed or subdued ([9], [10]). This breadth of application underscores the term’s versatility in literature across different eras and genres.
  1. These provisos admitted, in other things I may prove a tractable and complying husband.
    — from The Way of the World by William Congreve
  2. You will find him at Dunkeld; gentle and tractable he wanders up the hills, and through the wood, or sits listening beside the waterfall.
    — from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  3. Of all the tractable, equal-tempered, attached, and faithful beings that ever lived, I believe he was the most so.
    — from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  4. While the men were milking the boys would take turns in riding the tractable mare round the field.
    — from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
  5. The spectre soon dissolved in thin air and vanished, when the horses instantly became tractable.
    — from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes
  6. Thereafter force of iron And copper discovered was; and copper's use Was known ere iron's, since more tractable
    — from On the Nature of Things by Titus Lucretius Carus
  7. "Never would I be tractable in this matter.
    — from Villette by Charlotte Brontë
  8. "Would I speak now, and be tractable?"
    — from Villette by Charlotte Brontë
  9. By soothing and managing the commons they gradually rendered them tractable.
    — from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy
  10. It is a nice question as to the steering of the public, which, on the whole, is good and tractable.
    — from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

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