Literary notes about unreal (AI summary)
Throughout literature, the word “unreal” serves as a versatile tool, evoking a disjunction between appearance and reality and suggesting a blurred boundary where tangible existence meets the ephemeral or imaginative. In some works, it captures an elevated or almost otherworldly quality of status or beauty, as when a position is described as “unreal” to denote a hyperbolic, almost ineffable state [1]. In other contexts, “unreal” conveys a dreamlike detachment from everyday experience, hinting at an inner life of fantasies and emotions that renders the tangible world a pale reflection of what is truly felt [2]. Additionally, authors employ the term to critique artificiality or inadequacy, underscoring moments when the vibrant pulse of life seems to wane into something insubstantial and mere semblance, as seen in descriptions of disorienting journeys or altered perceptions [3][4]. Thus, “unreal” functions not only as a descriptor of the imaginary but also as a philosophical marker of the tension between what is perceived and what is inherently real.
- 307 The chancellor is grave, and clothed with ornaments, for his position is unreal.
— from Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal - A dreamer may dwell so long among fantasies that the things without him will seem as unreal as those within.
— from Twice-told tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne - Surely, the long unreal ride some progress of disease that had brought him to these gloomy shades!
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens - Seen from my window, it had an indescribably unreal and theatrical effect.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales by Bret Harte
