Literature[edit]
Further information: Light and darkness
As a poetic term in the Western world, darkness is used to connote the presence of shadows, evil, and foreboding. The 1820 short story "A Visit to the Lunar Sphere" tells of a darkness machine where prisms reflect light into bottles where it is captured.[4]
Religion[edit]
The first creation narrative in Christianity begins with darkness, into which is introduced the creation of light, and the separation of this light from the darkness (as distinct from the creation of the sun and moon on the fourth day of creation). Thus, although both light and darkness are included in the comprehensive works of the almighty God—darkness was considered "the second to last plague" (Exodus 10:21), and the location of "weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 8:12)
The Qur'an has been interpreted to say that those who transgress the bounds of what is right are doomed to "burning despair and ice-cold darkness." (Nab 78.25)[5]
Philosophy[edit]
In Chinese philosophy Yin is the complementary feminine part of the Taijitu and is represented by a dark lobe.
Poetry[edit]
The use of darkness as a rhetorical device has a long-standing tradition. Shakespeare, working in the 16th and 17th centuries, made a character called the "prince of darkness" (King Lear: III, iv) and gave darkness jaws with which to devour love. (A Midsummer Night's Dream: I, i)[6] Chaucer, a 14th-century Middle English writer of The Canterbury Tales, wrote that knights must cast away the "workes of darkness."[7] In The Divine Comedy, Dante described hell as "solid darkness stain'd."[8]
Language[edit]
In Old English there were three words that could mean darkness: heolstor, genip, and sceadu.[9] Heolstor also meant "hiding-place" and became holster. Genipmeant "mist" and fell out of use like many strong verbs. It is however still used in the Dutch saying "in het geniep" which means secretly. Sceadu meant "shadow" and remained in use. The word dark eventually evolved from the word deorc.[10]
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