Literary notes about incredible (AI summary)
In literature, “incredible” functions as a multifaceted term that can express both admiration and disbelief. It is often used to heighten the sense of wonder or to underline the implausibility of a situation, whether emphasizing an almost too-beautiful quality [1] or a remarkable feat achieved against all odds [2, 3]. At times, the word serves as a marker of irony and subtle critique, as when it highlights the absurdity of arguments or events [4, 5]. In other contexts, “incredible” underscores a tension between the expected and the unimaginable, lending a dynamic, sometimes paradoxical, flavor to the narrative [6, 7].
- You sweet young lady, you incredible beauty!”
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - It is almost incredible how much I managed to put away!
— from A Doll's House : a play by Henrik Ibsen - On impact, it gave off a metallic sonority, and as incredible as this sounds, it seemed, I swear, to be made of riveted plates.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - Suffice it to say that his argumentation in that chapter is so feeble as to seem almost incredible in so generally able a writer.
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James - War—among other things, a great disturber of science!—Incredible!
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - It all seems strange, incredible, impossible.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain - But they can beckon, and the knowledge of this incredible truth comforted him.
— from Howards End by E. M. Forster