Literary notes about scarce (AI summary)
The word "scarce" in literature often conveys a sense of insufficiency or near absence, heightening the dramatic or measured tone of a passage. Writers employ it as an adverb to underscore that something is barely present or to express a limitation in quantity or capacity. Its usage spans a wide range of contexts—from describing the dubious credibility of events in a divine journey ([1]) to emphasizing limited financial resources or truncated moments of action ([2], [3]). Moreover, the term frequently appears in lyrical and epic compositions to evoke the rarity or minimal presence of elements, such as in nature or human endeavor ([4], [5]). This deliberate brevity in language not only resonates with the poetic traditions of earlier eras but also enhances the weight of the narrative by subtly underscoring scarcity itself.
- If, Reader, to believe what now I tell Thou shouldst be slow, I wonder not, for I Who saw it all scarce find it credible.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri - As to the finances, they had scarce an existence, but as a matter of plunder to the managers, and of grants to insatiable and ungrateful courtiers.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke - Twelve o’clock had scarce rung out over London, ere the knocker sounded very gently on the door.
— from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - Really, honest men are not so scarce as I thought.”
— from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - And we have yet large day, for scarce the Sun Hath finisht half his journey, and scarce begins His other half in the great Zone of Heav’n.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton
