Literary notes about abandoned (AI summary)
In literature the word “abandoned” is employed in a variety of contexts, evoking both concrete and abstract states of being. It often describes physical desolation—a ruined city left to decay or a once-thriving settlement derelict from neglect ([1], [2], [3])—while simultaneously expressing a deeper, more personal relinquishing of hope, identity, or commitment ([4], [5], [6]). The term can also indicate a deliberate shedding of previous roles or ideas, highlighting transformation in character or circumstance ([7], [8]). In historical and strategic narratives, it signifies a collective withdrawal that underscores a broader change in fortune or power ([9], [10], [11]).
- The cities destroyed by the enemy and abandoned remained in ruins; and the natives, who had escaped the enemy, now fought against each other.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Saint the Venerable Bede - Here it may have been a relic of abandoned cultivation.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano - After a number had perished of hunger and of their wounds, they abandoned one half of the city, cut down the bridge, and held out in the other half.
— from Dio's Rome, Volume 1 by Cassius Dio Cocceianus - At last, when he saw five give way to four and that again to three, he lost heart, and abandoned all hope of escape.
— from A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle - He went up to her quickly and fell on his knees before her, seizing her hands: he abandoned all self-respect.
— from The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham - Then she tore her hair and beat her breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of extravagant emotion.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker - The fifth was a man who blended jest with earnest; and who, having been a harp-player, abandoned that profession for a serio-comic style of writing.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius - I should have abandoned everything to follow her, and share her fate: let it be what it would.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - On the 16th the general movement was continued, when Lost Mountain was abandoned by the enemy.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. Sherman - In a word, France resumed her facilities for trading, but practically abandoned her pretensions to political influence.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. Mahan - The timid or selfish policy of the Western Romans had abandoned the Eastern empire to the Huns.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
