Literary notes about anathema (AI summary)
The term “anathema” has been wielded with remarkable versatility in literature, serving as a potent curse, a marker of moral and social repudiation, and even a playful outburst. In some works, it is invoked with the fierce intensity of a denunciation—as seen in the incantatory curse against divorce in [1] and the resolute moral stand described in [2]. Authors like Hardy and Scott employ it to underscore bitter condemnation or tragic fate, as in [3] and [4], while Hawthorne and Chekhov illustrate its use to evoke an almost tangible aura of doom or disapproval in personal interactions ([5], [6], [7]). The word also makes curious appearances in unexpected contexts, such as its playful integration in sentences about coffee in [8] or its metaphorical application in political and social commentary in [9] and [10]. In these varied instances, “anathema” emerges not merely as an archaic sermonic term but as a multifaceted symbol—a malediction that both binds and rejects, reverberating with cultural, moral, and sometimes even humorous connotations.
- Let divorce be anathema; curse it; curse this accursed thing, divorce; curse it, curse it!
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I - He chose rather to incur their anathema than to wound his conscience, and departed from the city.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - "He that is accursed, let him be accursed still," was the pitiless anathema written in this spoliated effort of his new-born solicitousness.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy - The Cross thus formed he held on high, With wasted hand and haggard eye, And strange and mingled feelings woke, While his anathema he spoke:— IX.
— from The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott - He shrank from the venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema.
— from Mosses from an old manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne - Hold him, hold him, or else he’ll get away, the anathema!
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - “You anathema, plague take you!”
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - It appears that boiled coffee (the name is anathema today) was invented about the year 1000 A.D.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - And some poor Conservatives who are against conscription must vote for Laurier, who always has been anathema to them.
— from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery - To do anything THEY have never done is anathema maranatha.
— from Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery