epistle To the Gentlemen Readers, prefixed to "A
Margarite of America," he tells us that he read the original of that story
"in the Library of the Jesuits in Sanctum ... in the Spanish tongue."]
[Footnote 4: Jusserand, "The English Novel in the Time of
Shakespeare," p. 236.]
Style: Euphuistic. Nor was Lodge more original in his manner than in
his matter. His style is that of the euphuists. John Lyly's "Euphues, or
the Anatomy of Wit" (1579), and its sequel "Euphues and His England"
(1580), had set a fashion that was destined for the next two decades to
enjoy a tremendous vogue. Lyly's was the first conspicuous example in
English of the attempt to achieve an ornate and rather fantastic style.
The result became known as euphuism, and those who employed it as
euphuists. In its essential features it consists of three distinct
mannerisms: a balance of phrases, an elaborate system of alliteration,
and a profusion of similes taken from fabulous natural history.
Regarding the euphuistic use of balance, Dr. Landmann says of Lyly's
prose:[1] "We have here the most elaborate antithesis not only of well
balanced clauses, but also of words, often even of sentences.... Even
when he uses a single sentence he opposes the words within the clause
to each other."
[Footnote 1: In "Shakspere and Euphuism," _Transactions of the New
Shakspere Society_, 1880-1882.]
Of this balance Lodge's "Rosalynde" affords abundant illustration. Such
a succession of sentences as that on page 7, where each sentence is
composed of balanced clauses, is a striking but by no means unique
example. Usually the contrasted words begin with the same letter or
sound, as in the sentences just cited, where the alliteration appears to be
employed to emphasize the contrast. Often the alliteration serves
merely for ornament, as in the sentence: "It is she, O gentle swain, it is
she, that saint it is whom I serve, that goddess at whose shrine I do
bend all my devotions; the most fairest of all fairs, the phoenix of all
that sex, and the purity of all earthly perfection."
The euphuistic similes were of three kinds. First, there were those
drawn from familiar natural objects, such as, "Happily she resembleth
the rose, that is sweet but full of prickles." Secondly, there are those
taken from classical history and mythology, like these: "Is she some
nymph that waits upon Diana's train, ... or is she some shepherdess ...
whose name thou shadowest in covert under the figure of Rosalynde, as
Ovid did Julia under the name of Corinna?" Thirdly, there are those
similes most characteristic of euphuism, though less commonly found
than the two kinds just mentioned, namely, those drawn from
"unnatural natural history." Such are the comparisons to "the serpent
Regius that hath scales as glorious as the sun and a breath as infectious
as aconitum is deadly," to "the hyena, most guileful when she mourns,"
to "the colors of a polype which changes at the sight of every object,"
and to "the Sethin leaf that never wags but with a southeast wind."
One of the Last Examples of Euphuism. When Lodge wrote
"Rosalynde," euphuism was already on the wane. Even among Lodge's
contemporaries the fashion was becoming an object of frequent ridicule.
Thus Warner, in his "Albion's England" (1589), complains in the
preface, which, by the way, is written wholly in the euphuistic manner:
"Onely this error may be thought hatching in our English, that to runne
on the letter we often runne from the matter: and being over prodigall
in similes we become less profitable in sentences and more prolixious
to sense."
By 1627 euphuism had become an obsolete fashion. In that year
Drayton wrote of Sidney that he
did first reduce
Our tongue from Lillies writing then in use:
Talking
of Stones, Stars, Plants, of Fishes, Flyes,
Playing with words and idle
Similies
As th' English Apes and very Zanies be
Of everything that
they doe heare and see,
So imitating his ridiculous tricks,
They
spake and writ like meere lunatiques.
"Rosalynde" marks the end of the unquestioned supremacy of
euphuism as a literary mode. It was the last book of any importance to
employ the style that Lyly had made so popular.
The Charm of the Book. In spite of the conventionality inseparable
from the pastoral form, and the obvious artificiality of the style in
which it is written, "Rosalynde" is really charming. Its charm is much
like that of Watteau's landscapes. Like them, it is an idyll in court dress,
a _fête élégante_, a kind of elegant picnic. Yet, like Watteau's pictures
it is of more than merely historic interest, for it is far more than simply
a reminder of the fopperies of a vanished time. There is in it, as in the
paintings, a lightness and daintiness of coloring, and an indescribable
air of freshness that
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