Literary notes about alien (AI summary)
Literary usage of the word "alien" is notably multifaceted, functioning to illustrate everything from social estrangement to the unfamiliar and indirectly foreign. In some works, it denotes a clear separation or disconnect between groups or individuals, evoking notions of cultural or political difference—consider its portrayal of an outsider quality that sets one apart from societal norms ([1], [2]). At the same time, authors employ "alien" in a more intimate sense to suggest that certain behaviors, emotions, or even physical traits can feel inherently estranged from one’s natural self ([3], [4]). Poets and novelists alike have used the term to invoke mysterious or ethereal qualities, whether it is the resonance of an unfamiliar tongue or the striking contrast between the known and the unaccustomed ([5], [6]). Through such varied applications, "alien" emerges as a powerful literary device, exploring the tension between belonging and the otherworldly.
- Thus while the French exercised no salutary influence over the Indians, the English have always remained alien from them.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville - Mr. Bryan says: So far as their own internal affairs are concerned, they do not need to be subject to any alien government.
— from The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 by James H. Blount - She flitted through the rooms, like a good spirit, dispatched from the celestial kingdom, to illumine our dark hour with alien splendour.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Groveling, man knows well; despair is seldom alien; yet these are perversities, no part of man's true lot.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - iv.: Laugh'd with alien lips, which is Homer's ( Od ., 69-70)
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson - And his eyes were of such alien blue As gleams where the Northman saileth new Into an unknown fiord.
— from The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton
