Literary notes about undern (AI summary)
The word “undern” operates on multiple planes in literature, serving both as a marker of time and as a designated locale imbued with symbolic resonance. In certain texts it is deployed in archaic forms—for instance, rendered as “undermeles” to suggest diffused, languid periods (see [1]) or repeated rhythmically to evoke the drowsy heat of a summer afternoon (see [2]). Elsewhere, its use denotes a specific place, whether as a refuge, a familiar meeting point, or a site of transformation and isolation (see [3], [4]), while in other passages it marks particular intervals or transitions in the day (see [5] and [6]). In this dual capacity, “undern” enriches narratives by overlaying time with space, blending the temporal and territorial into a subtle undercurrent of meaning.
- Undermeles , pl. undern-times, perhaps afternoons, D 875.
— from Chaucer's Works, Volume 6 (of 7) — Introduction, Glossary, and Indexes by Geoffrey Chaucer - You have only to say it over—undern, undern, undern,—to be heavenly drowsy with summer afternoon.
— from Friendship Village Love Stories by Zona Gale - She had hesitated, putting off the inevitable, feeling that Undern was always there, like an empty room, for her re-entry, so she had not hurried.
— from Gone to Earth by Mary Gladys Meredith Webb - There were no roads near Undern except its own cart track; there were no railways within miles.
— from Gone to Earth by Mary Gladys Meredith Webb - Then, as prime shifted from 6 to 9 a.m., undern shifted from 9 to 10 or half-past ten.
— from Chaucer's Works, Volume 6 (of 7) — Introduction, Glossary, and Indexes by Geoffrey Chaucer - 1 He, coming home at undern-time, there found undern-time > {The third hour of the day, i.e. about 9 a.m.; noon; the afternoon or evening.
— from The Faerie Queene — Volume 01 by Edmund Spenser
