Literary notes about dull (AI summary)
In literature, the word “dull” is remarkably versatile, often evoking a mood of monotony or lifelessness as much as it characterizes physical or emotional states. It describes not only the tedious pace of a season or day ([1], [2], [3]) but also appears as a critique of personalities—revealing characters as uninteresting or intellectually uninspired ([4], [5], [6]). Authors deploy “dull” to reflect emotional desolation or grief ([7], [8]) and to denote lackluster tones in voices or expressions ([9], [10], [11]). At times, the term paints a picture of muted colors and atmospheres—a “dull yet lurid orange” or distant, indistinct sounds which heighten the sense of oppressive mundanity ([12], [13]). Whether used to articulate the weariness of everyday life or to underscore the absence of vitality in people or settings, “dull” functions as a multifaceted descriptor that adds depth and nuance to literary portrayals.
- It has been a very dull season, hasn’t it?
— from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde - We have had a very dull Christmas; Mr and Mrs Musgrove have not had one dinner party all the holidays.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen - It was a dull and heavy evening when they again sallied forth on their awkward errand.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - [Changes his chair] You’re very dull, you know.
— from Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - At Eton he was called dull, idle, slow, and was about the last boy in school of whom anything was expected.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden - dull, petty, shallow, stolid, ungifted, unintelligent.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget - The loss of her daughter made Mrs. Bennet very dull for several days.
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - Ah, it was a dull agony to her to remember what she had been then.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence - "My choice is made," she said, in a dull voice.
— from The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham - The princess continued to look at him without moving, and with the same dull expression.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - To the dull sailors’ sight her loosened looks Seemed like the jagged storm-rack, and her feet Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks, p. 112
— from Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde - It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.
— from The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The windows of the room were open, and looked southward, and a dull distant sound came over the sun-lighted roofs from that direction.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
