Literary notes about range (AI summary)
In literature, the term "range" functions on multiple levels, deftly blending literal spatial breadth with metaphorical expansiveness. It can evoke vast physical sceneries—as when mountain ridges shape rugged landscapes [1][2][3] or certain boundaries delineate territories [4][5]—while also describing the broad scope of ideas and actions, such as narratives that span extensive thematic territories [6][7][8]. Moreover, the word captures the limits of perception or influence, whether referring to the extent of a character’s sensory awareness [9][10] or the critical distance in moments of crisis and conflict [11][12]. Through these varied uses, "range" enriches literary textures by measuring both the physical scale of the world and the expansive depth of human experience.
- A very steep ascent leads to the bungalow of Moflong, on a broad, bleak hill-top, near the axis of the range (alt.
— from The Fables of Aesop by Aesop - Pelion is one of a lofty range of mountains in Thessaly.
— from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare - This river rises in the same mountains as the Nestus and Hebrus, a wild and extensive range connected with Rhodope.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides - It is divided from Italy by the river Varus 1065 , and by the range of the Alps, the great safeguards of the Roman Empire.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny - The loftiest point of the mountain-range that traverses the island of Crete from west to east.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny - (2) His novels are on a vast scale, covering a very wide range of action, and are concerned with public rather than with private interests.
— from English Literature by William J. Long - Great men are more distinguished by range and extent, than by originality.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson - [15] Twenty-two resolutions, covering the whole range of woman's political, religious, civil, and social rights, were discussed and adopted.
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I - He became aware of the same obscure effort in her, the same reaching out toward something beyond the usual range of her vision.
— from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton - I begin trying to think of something popular, something within the range of her understanding.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - A formidable line of the enemy came within dangerous range.
— from The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane - Hill’s riflemen, lying down to load, and rising only to fire, poured in their deadly volleys at point-blank range.
— from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
