Literary notes about sweet (AI summary)
Writers deploy "sweet" in diverse ways to evoke not only a pleasing taste or scent but also deeper emotional and symbolic layers. At times, it connotes tender affection and gentle beauty, as seen when describing a beloved’s eyes or disposition in Shakespearean verse [1][2][3][4]. In other passages, it creates a striking contrast between bitter pain and the hope of a more delightful future, suggesting a duality of human experience [5][6]. It is also employed to capture sensory charm in nature—a sweet fragrance, air, or visual scene—that enlivens the narrative with warmth and tenderness [7][8]. Whether used in the realm of romance, nature, or philosophical musings, "sweet" enriches the text by layering literal delight with metaphorical resonance [9][10].
- LYSANDER She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
— from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare - While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart.
— from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare - Parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
— from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare - Trust me, sweet, Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;
— from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare - consider that the death to come is more bitter, and the life to come is more sweet."
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - [Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet].
— from Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 02 (of 15), American (2) by Charles Morris - The very rankness of the smell of manure in the clear sweet air awoke something heady in his brain.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson - My palace with unblinded eyes, While this great bow will waver in the sun, And that sweet incense rise?" 6
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson - When I build castles in the air, Void of sorrow and void of fear, Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet, Methinks the time runs very fleet.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton - Deafe were the eares, not charm'd with that sweet sound Which did i'th spirit-instructed voice abound.
— from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) by John Donne