Literary notes about wind (AI summary)
Across literature, the word “wind” emerges as a multifaceted symbol, representing both the raw force of nature and a metaphor for change, emotion, or fate. In many works, authors use wind to conjure vivid natural imagery—a mighty, relentless gale that shapes the landscape as seen in Dickens’s depiction of a “mighty wind” ([1]) or the vivid account of a wind that “blew so hard” halting progress in the journals of Lewis and Clark ([2]). At the same time, wind is not merely a meteorological phenomenon but also an emblem for the intangible, as when it is likened to the flow of events or the passage of time itself ([3], [4]). Whether gentle and nurturing, as in the soft caress of a “west wind” in Shakespeare ([5]), or fierce and destructive like the “furious bullock” of Nietzsche’s imagery ([6]), wind in literary contexts becomes a dynamic force that mirrors the turbulence, beauty, and unpredictability of life.
- As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - the wind blew so hard this evening that we were obliged to halt several hours.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis - This wind of clouds resembled the wind of events.
— from The History of a Crime by Victor Hugo - Time passes like the wind.
— from A Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs - For when the west wind courts her gently, How modestly she blowes, and paints the Sun, With her chaste blushes!
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - The thawing wind, a bullock, which is no ploughing bullock—a furious bullock, a destroyer, which with angry horns breaketh the ice!
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
