John Lyly Critical Essay | Critical Essay by J. J. Jusserand

Critical Essay by J. J. Jusserand

SOURCE: "Lyly and His Euphues" in The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, T. Fisher Unwin, 1890, pp. 103-05.

In the following excerpt, Jusserand explores Lyly's success and credits it to his "bad style," earnest sermonizing, and his appeal to female readers—writing eloquently of the "knowledge of the heart of woman."

Gi; lyly and His Euphues. =~ Slyly and His Euphues.

The romance which, at this period, received a new life, and was to come nearer to our novels than anything that had gone before, has many traits in common with the fanciful style of the architecture, costume, and conversation described above. What have we to do, thought men, with things practical, convenient, or of ordinary use? We wish for nothing but what is brilliant, unexpected, extraordinary. What is the good of setting down in writing the incidents of commonplace lives? Are they not sufficiently known to us? does not their triviality sadden us enough every day? If we...
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