Literary notes about engagement (AI summary)
In literature, the word engagement unfolds in a variety of ways, serving both literal and metaphorical roles. It can denote a formal promise, as seen when characters enter into commitments of love and marriage ([1], [2], [3]), and it also describes military and political confrontations in narratives where strategic encounters are central to the plot ([4], [5], [6]). At times, it frames professional and ceremonial obligations, ranging from artistic performances to contractual duties ([7], [8]), while in other contexts it signals the initiation or termination of a significant personal relationship ([9], [10]). This multiplicity of uses demonstrates how writers harness a single term to capture both the intimacy of individual bonds and the complexity of broader social or combative interactions ([11], [12]).
- I After Prince Andrew’s engagement to Natásha, Pierre without any apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?"
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - “You mean that since you have broken off your engagement you feel—” “Yes, yes.
— from A Room with a View by E. M. Forster - The latter, who had been in the engagement off Tyndaris, had charge of the left wing.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius - The armies finally met on Sailor's Creek, when a heavy engagement took place, in which infantry, artillery and cavalry were all brought into action.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. Grant - Strategically, however, the engagement was decisive.
— from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie - I laid my project and its motive before Schroder-Devrient, who had just returned to Dresden, at Easter, 1844, to fulfil a fresh engagement.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner - Here I am, and here I will remain until my departure for Mantua where I have an engagement as first dancer.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - Perhaps you have not forgotten either what I said when I consented to our engagement?
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - “She thinks herself wrong, then, for having consented to a private engagement?”
— from Emma by Jane Austen - The most sacred rights of freedom, confirmed by the Porcian and Sempronian laws, were suspended by the military engagement.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - And now matters were not far from a regular engagement, had not the contest been quickly stopped by the centurions.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy
