Literary notes about solitude (AI summary)
In literature, the word "solitude" carries a multitude of meanings that reveal the complexities of human emotion and experience. Some authors evoke its melancholic isolation to highlight the emotional distance between individuals, as seen in its use to depict painful isolation and inner torment ([1], [2]). Others suggest that solitude may serve as a creative refuge or a necessary state for personal introspection and growth, providing a space where the spirit can regain strength or forge new ideas ([3], [4]). At times it appears as a refuge where one finds solace and the freedom to explore one’s inner life ([5], [6]), while in other instances it is portrayed as a burden or even a prison from which escape seems impossible ([7]). This range of connotations demonstrates how solitude, far from being a singular state, encapsulates both the beauty of introspection and the sorrow of isolation.
- I shunned the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation—deep, dark, death-like solitude.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - All around was open loneliness and black solitude, over which a stiff breeze blew.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy - Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
— from Among My Books. First Series by James Russell Lowell - It is in solitude that the creative mind organizes the materials appropriated from the group in order to make novel and fruitful innovations.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - At these moments I took refuge in the most perfect solitude.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - In solitude there groweth what any one bringeth into it—also the brute in one’s nature.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
