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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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