Literary evocations of quiet halved across two centuries

Evidence

But we also notice a decline in the number of times quiet and silence are evoked in literary descriptions. Of all descriptions in our file for the decades 1810–30, 19 percent mention quiet or silence; by 1870–90 mentions had dropped to 14 percent, and by 1940–60 to 9 percent. Thus it would appear that while writers are not consciously perceptive of the accumulation of technological sounds, at an unconscious level they are noticing the disappearance of quiet and silence. — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 477

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: ‘the literature of disappearing silence’ — quantifying how prose unconsciously tracks acoustic loss before anyone names it.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 477
• XREF: connects to: Literary mentions of silence fell steadily from 1810 to 1960 — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 477

Broader Connections

• Literary mentions of silence fell steadily from 1810 to 1960 #expands (0.95) — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 477