In the age
of Elizabeth the writers of fiction neither studied the characters and
manners of the men about them, nor aimed at any reflection of actual
life. But their tales and romances were the natural fruit of their
intellectual condition, and form an interesting if not a valuable
portion of English fiction. In them are reflected the happiness, the
poetry, the love of novelty, and the ideality of the time. The stirring
incidents of chivalric romance were no longer in vogue, and the subject
became an idealized love. But the most striking feature of Elizabethan
fiction is the great importance attached to style. The writer cared
more to excite admiration by the turn of his phrases and the ornaments
of his language, than to interest his reader by plot or incident.
In 1579 John Lyly published his curious romance, "Euphues, the Anatomy
of Wit," a work which attained a great popularity, and made the word
Euphuism an abstract term in the language to express the ornate and
antithetical style of which this book is the most marked example. In
Lyly's own day it was said by Edward Blount that the nation was "in his
debt for a new English which hee taught them." Since then, the verdict
of posterity has been that Lyly corrupted the public taste, and
introduced an affected and overloaded manner of writing which had a
mischievous influence upon literature.
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