Euphuism
An artificial, ornate prose style packed with elaborate similes, alliteration, and antithesis.
Euphuism is a highly decorated prose style named after John Lyly's prose romance Euphues (1578). It is marked by elaborate comparisons, balanced antithesis, alliteration, and a parade of learning from classical mythology and natural history.
A euphuistic sentence might run: 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, yet the sweetness of the rose is not in the name but in the scent, and the scent of virtue is not in the tongue but in the life.' The style values symmetry and ornament over plainness.
Euphuism was fashionable in the late sixteenth century, especially at court, but by the early seventeenth century it was already being mocked as affected. Modern writers sometimes use it deliberately for parody or to evoke a Renaissance voice.
Common mistake: imitating euphuism without committing to its music. A few alliterative phrases do not make euphuism; the style is a sustained architecture of balance and echo.
“It is a world to see how wit is wasted, where wisdom is wanting, and where wisdom is wanting, wit is but a wind.”
Keep reading the glossary
Speech or writing that is deliberately lofty, ornate, and inflated — often at the expense of clarity.
A grammatical balance of two opposed ideas — 'to be or not to be'.
The repetition of an initial consonant sound across nearby words.
A rhetorical scheme in which successive clauses have the same length and grammatical structure.