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Literary notes about unfounded (AI summary)

The word "unfounded" in literature often functions as a critical marker, used to dismiss suspicions or assumptions that lack solid evidence. In works like Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo [1] and Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot [2], "unfounded" accompanies emotions of deep distrust or the negation of dubious suspicions, suggesting that certain convictions are baseless. Rousseau’s Emile [3] and Shelley's The Last Man [4] further exemplify its use in portraying personal grievances and accusations as void of merit, while Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi [5] and Doyle’s The Sign of the Four [6] employ the term to question assumptions in a broader social and moral context. In other literary instances—whether in the gossip-laden atmosphere of Wharton’s The Age of Innocence [7, 8], the dismissive tone in Austen’s Persuasion [9], or even historical narratives such as Suetonius’s Lives of the Twelve Caesars [10]—the designation "unfounded" consistently signals that an assertion or rumor has been debunked or fails to hold up under scrutiny. Authors like Braddon [11, 12], Northup [13], and even Marco Polo [14] use the term to call into question the reliability of certain opinions, urging readers to seek evidence rather than accept claims at face value.
  1. I shall have the mournful satisfaction of sacrificing myself utterly to a distrust as absurd as it is unfounded.
    — from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud
  2. “You know yourself that all you suspected is quite unfounded.
    — from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  3. An unfounded suspicion on her part nearly ruined everything, but Sophy is really just and knows how to atone for her faults.
    — from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  4. This contention is unworthy of both of us; and I confess that I am weary of replying to charges at once unfounded and unkind."
    — from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  5. The assumption is unfounded.
    — from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
  6. It is our duty to clear him of this dreadful and unfounded charge.
    — from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
  7. Archer had left her with the conviction that Count Olenski's accusation was not unfounded.
    — from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
  8. He had not heard her divorce spoken of since Janey's first random allusion to it, and had dismissed the tale as unfounded gossip.
    — from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
  9. "She could not make a very long history, I think, of one such little article of unfounded news." Mrs Smith said nothing.
    — from Persuasion by Jane Austen
  10. Most probably Antony knew the imputation to be unfounded, and made it for the purpose of excusing his own marriage with Cleopatra.]
    — from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius
  11. "If I receive no answer I shall think that my fears have been not unfounded, and I shall do my best to act.
    — from Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. Braddon
  12. If you say those suspicions are foolish and unfounded I am ready to submit to your better judgment.
    — from Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. Braddon
  13. The story of the trio of slave-traders is a fabrication as absurd as it is base and unfounded.
    — from Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
  14. But yet the supposition is probably unfounded.
    — from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

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