Euphuism, an elegant Elizabethan literary style marked…
December 1595 CE
Euphuism, an elegant Elizabethan literary style marked by excessive use of balance, antithesis, and alliteration and by frequent use of similes drawn from mythology and nature, is derived from the name of a character in the prose romances Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) and Euphues and his England (1580) by the English author John Lyly.
The style, although it will soon fall out of fashion, plays an important role in the development of English prose.
It appears at a time of experimentation with prose styles, and it offers prose that is lighter and more fanciful than previous writing.
The influence of euphuism can be seen in the works of such writers as Robert Greene and William Shakespeare, both of whom will imitate the style in some works and parody it in others.
Lyly has after 1580 devoted himself almost entirely to writing comedies.
He had in 1583 gained control of the first Blackfriars Theatre, in which his earliest plays, Campaspe and Sapho and Phao, had been produced.
All of Lyly's comedies except The Woman in the Moon are presented by the Children of Paul's, a children's company that receives the periodic favor of Queen Elizabeth.
The performance dates of his plays are as follows: Campaspe and Sapho and Phao, 1583–84; Gallathea, 1585–88; Endimion, 1588; Midas, 1590; Love's Metamorphosis, 1590; Mother Bombie, 1590; and The Woman in the Moon, 1595.
All but one of these are in prose.
The finest is considered to be Endimion, which some critics hold a masterpiece despite its preciosity.
Lyly's comedies mark an enormous advance upon those of his predecessors in English drama.
Their plots are drawn from classical mythology and legend, and their characters engage in euphuistic speeches redolent of Renaissance pedantry; but the charm and wit of the dialogues and the light and skillful construction of the plots set standards that younger and more gifted dramatists cannot ignore.
Lyly's popularity had waned with the rise of Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare, and his appeals to Elizabeth for financial relief go unheeded.
Shakespeare's Richard II is acted on December 9, 1595, at a private performance at the Canon Row house of Sir Edward Hoby; Sir Robert Cecil attends.
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