Literary notes about tradition (AI summary)
In literature, the word "tradition" functions as both a link to the past and a dynamic framework through which authors explore social, cultural, and even mystical themes. It is often invoked to anchor a narrative in historic or mythical contexts, as when Celtic customs are recalled or ancient laws are reasserted ([1], [2]), or used to assert the legitimacy and continuity of societal practices ([3], [4]). At the same time, tradition can serve as a point of contention or reinvention; while it preserves long-held beliefs and oral histories ([5], [6]), it is also critiqued or reinterpreted to question established norms and values ([7], [8], [9]). Thus, across diverse texts, tradition emerges not merely as a static collection of inherited customs, but as a living, sometimes disputed, element that both shapes and is reshaped by the ongoing dialogue between past and present.
- According to Graham, it is "the scene of the death of a wild boar famous in Celtic tradition.
— from The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott - There is probably truth in the tradition that the Laws were not published until after the death of Plato.
— from Laws by Plato - She knew, by tradition, that one should above all respect the Pope and the King!
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - This tradition is to a certain extent confirmed by evidence, pointing to the conclusion that at Athens male kinship was preceded by female kinship.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - But, if it was so, we have here another instance of the tenacity with which oral tradition is able to preserve the most minute points of the story.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - Nowhere else is there so large and consistent a body of oral tradition about the national and mythical heroes as amongst the Gaels.
— from Celtic Fairy Tales - Thus, "The echoing walks between," may be almost said to reverse the fable in tradition of the head of Memnon, in the Egyptian statue.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Eliza has no use for the foolish romantic tradition that all women love to be mastered, if not actually bullied and beaten.
— from Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw - Where there is no tradition there is no morality; and the less life is governed by tradition, the narrower the circle of morality.
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
