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euphuism

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euphuism

Affected style of writing full of high-flown language and far-fetched metaphors, especially in imitation of English playwright John Lyly's Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) and Euphues and his England (1580).

Euphuism aimed to be artificial and affected in its desire for refinement. It was fashionable towards the end of Queen Elizabeth I's reign. Lyly, in addressing his writings chiefly to women, said he would rather see his works ‘lie shut in a lady's casket than open in a scholar's study’. His idea was not to improve, but to amuse.

Some commentators on Shakespeare have suggested that in Love's Labour's Lost he was satirizing the euphuists in the character of Don Adriano de Armado.



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"Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen" seems to be "General-statesrepresentativesmeetings," as nearly as I can get at it--a mere rhythmical, gushy euphuism for "meetings of the legislature," I judge.
Men are naturally hunters and inquisitive of wood-craft, and I suppose that such a gazetteer as wood-cutters and Indians should furnish facts for, would take place in the most sumptuous drawing-rooms of all the "Wreaths" and "Flora's chaplets" of the bookshops; yet ordinarily, whether we are too clumsy for so subtle a topic, or from whatever cause, as soon as men begin to write on nature, they fall into euphuism.
 
 
 
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