Literary notes about altar (AI summary)
The word "altar" in literature encompasses a rich spectrum of meanings, oscillating between its literal role as a sacred site for sacrifices and a figurative symbol of dedication, commitment, or even internal transformation. Authors like Frazer ([1], [2]) and Josephus ([3], [4], [5]) depict it as a tangible structure central to religious ritual and sacrifice, while writers such as Richardson ([6]) and Doyle ([7], [8]) use it to frame pivotal ceremonies and personal journeys. Meanwhile, in works by Chekhov ([9], [10]) and Joyce ([11], [12], [13]), the altar takes on more metaphorical resonances, representing focal points of moral or social significance. Even in poetic and symbolic musings, as seen in the verses of Victor Hugo ([14]) and Rilke ([15]), the altar emerges as a motif that elevates human emotion and spiritual aspiration.
- When the temple was ready, the bird was carried into it in solemn procession and laid on an altar erected for the purpose.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - But when Hercules came to Egypt, and was being dragged to the altar to be sacrificed, he burst his bonds and slew Busiris and his son.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - Besides this, they set the extremities, and the kidneys, and the fat, with the lobe of the liver, upon the altar.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus - The temple itself was within this; and before that temple was the altar, upon which we offer our sacrifices and burnt-offerings to God.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus - He also made a brazen altar, whose length was twenty cubits, and its breadth the same, and its height ten, for the burnt-offerings.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus - My dear master came to me, at entering the chapel, and took my hand, and led me up to the altar.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson - I went to the altar with him with the intention to make him just as good a wife as it was in me to be.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - I only wonder I didn’t fall down and do a faint right there before the altar.”
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - And your promise before the altar?
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - It was just as though pursuing one another we had accidentally run up to the altar and had carried on a quarrel there.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Pray at an altar.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - He knelt before the altar with his classmates, holding the altar cloth with them over a living rail of hands.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce - —And preach politics from the altar, is it?
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce - Thou art my song and I the lyre; Thou art the breeze and I the brier; The altar I, and thou the fire; Mine the deep love, the beauty thine!
— from Poems by Victor Hugo - As artist, he has felt life to be sacred, and as a priest, he has brought to its altar many offerings.
— from Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
