John Lyly | Page 7

did in prose what Waller did in poetry.
[13] A discourse of English Poetrie, Arber's reprint.
SECTION I. The Anatomy of Euphuism.
The books which have been written upon the characteristics of Lyly's
prose are numberless, and far outweigh the attention given to his power
as a novelist, to say nothing of his dramas[14]. Indeed the absorption of
the critics in the analysis of euphuism seems to have been, up to a few
years ago, definitely injurious to a true appreciation of our author's
position, by blocking the path to a recognition of his importance in
other directions. And yet, in spite of all this, it cannot be said that any
adequate examination of the structure of Lyly's style appeared until Mr
Child took the matter in hand in 1894[15]. And Mr Child has
performed his task so scientifically and so exhaustively that he has
killed the topic by making any further treatment of it superfluous. This
being the case, a description of the euphuistic style need not detain us
for long. I shall content myself with the briefest summary of its
characteristics, drawing upon Mr Child for my matter, and referring
those who are desirous of further details to Mr Child's work itself. We
shall then be in a position to proceed to the more interesting, and as yet
unsettled problem, of the origins of euphuism. The great value of Mr

Child's work lies in the fact that he has at once simplified and amplified
the conclusions of previous investigators. Dr Weymouth[16] was the
first to discover that, beneath the "curtizan-like painted affectation" of
euphuism, there lay a definite theory of style and a consistent method
of procedure. Dr Landmann carried the analysis still further in his now
famous paper published in the New Shakespeare Society's Transactions
(1880-82). But these two, and those who have followed them, have
erred, on the one hand in implying that euphuism was much more
complex than it is in reality, and on the other by confining their
attention to single sentences, and so failing to perceive that the
euphuistic method was applicable to the paragraph, as a whole, no less
than to the sentence. And it is upon these two points that Mr Child's
essay is so specially illuminating. We shall obtain a correct notion of
the "essential character" of the "euphuistic rhetoric," he writes, "if we
observe that it employs but one simple principle in practice, and that it
applies this, not only to the ordering of the single sentence, but in every
structural relation[17]": and this simple principle is "the inducement of
artificial emphasis through Antithesis and Repetition--Antithesis to
give pointed expression to the thought, Repetition to enforce it[18]."
When Lyly set out to write his novel, it seemed that his intention was to
produce a most elaborate essay in antithesis. The book as a whole,
"very pleasant for all gentlemen to read and most necessary to
remember," was itself an antithesis; the discourses it contains were
framed upon the same plan; the sentences are grouped antithetically;
while the antithesis is pointed by an equally elaborate repetition of
ideas, of vowel sounds and of consonant sounds. Letters, syllables,
words, sentences, sentence groups, paragraphs, all are employed for the
purpose of producing the antithetical style now known as euphuism. An
example will serve to make the matter clearer. Philautus, upbraiding his
treacherous friend Euphues for robbing him of his lady's love, delivers
himself of the following speech: "Although hitherto Euphues I have
shrined thee in my heart for a trusty friend, I will shunne thee hereafter
as a trothless foe, and although I cannot see in thee less wit than I was
wont, yet do I find less honesty. I perceive at the last (although being
deceived it be too late) that musk though it be sweet in the smell is sour
in the smack, that the leaf of the cedar tree though it be fair to be seen,
yet the syrup depriveth sight--that friendship though it be plighted by

the shaking of the hand, yet it is shaken by the fraud of the heart. But
thou hast not much to boast of, for as thou hast won a fickle lady, so
hast thou lost a faithful friend[19]." It is impossible to give an adequate
idea of the euphuistic style save in a lengthy quotation, such as the
discourse of Eubulus selected by Mr Child for that purpose[20]; but,
within the narrow limits of the passage I have chosen, the main
characteristics of euphuism are sufficiently obvious. It should be
noticed how one part of a sentence is balanced by another part, and
how this balance or "parallelism" is made more pointed by means of
alliteration, e.g. "shrined thee for a trusty friend," "shun thee as a
trothless foe"; musk "sweet in the smell,"