Literary notes about unutterable (AI summary)
Across a wide array of literary genres, the word “unutterable” is employed as a potent intensifier to evoke emotions and ideas that defy conventional description. In romantic and tragic narratives, it amplifies feelings of extreme joy, sorrow, and longing—as seen in expressions of “unutterable joy” ([1]) or “unutterable anguish” ([2], [3])—while in more critical or realist texts the term captures the ineffable quality of horror, indignation, or despair ([4], [5]). Moreover, even when addressing abstract or intellectual themes, authors use "unutterable" to suggest that certain concepts (whether trivial or profound) lie beyond the limits of language and comprehension ([6], [7]). Thus, whether denoting ecstatic delight or overwhelming misery, “unutterable” functions as a versatile literary tool to communicate the inexpressible.
- We lay close locked in the most delicious embrace, only conscious of unutterable joy.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous - Repelled, betrayed, cut off from the hope of succor, I could only prostrate myself upon the earth and groan in unutterable anguish.
— from Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup - As I stood there, feelings of unutterable agony overwhelmed me.
— from Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup - To the women—unutterable horror of the suggestion—the place is free.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. Riis - There was deep and unutterable indignation, but no useless words were spoken.
— from The History of a Crime by Victor Hugo - The first thing that strikes one in such definitions is their unutterable triviality.
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James - Let the most vigorous of human imaginations but attempt to take a single step toward the comprehension of a circuit so unutterable!
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe
