Chapter IV: 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," "sour in the smack," and so on. The former of these antitheses is an example of transverse alliteration, of which so much is made by Dr Landmann, but which, as Mr Child shows, plays a subordinate, and an entirely mechanical, part in Lyly's style[21]. Lyly's most natural and most usual method of emphasizing is by means of simple alliteration. On the other hand it must be noticed that he employs alliteration for the sake of euphony alone much more frequently than he uses it for the purpose of emphasis. So that we may conclude by saying that simple alliteration forms the basis of the euphuistic diction, just as we have seen antithesis forms the basis of the euphuistic construction. This brief survey of the framework of euphuism is far from being an exhaustive analysis. All that is here attempted is an enumeration of the most obvious marks of euphuism, as a necessary step to an investigation of its origin, and to a determination of its place in the history of our literature.

[14] Child, pp. 6-20, for an account of chief writers who have dealt
with euphuism.

[15] _John Lyly and Euphuism._ C. G. Child.

[16] _On Euphuism_, Phil. Soc. Trans., 1870-2.

[17] Child, p. 43.

[18] _id._, p. 44.

[19] _Euphues_, p. 90.

[20] Child, p. 39.

[21] _id._, p. 46.

Before, however, leaving the subject entirely, we must mention two more characteristics of Lyly's prose which are very noticeable, but which come under the head of ornamental, rather than constructional, devices. The first of these is a peculiar use of the rhetorical interrogation. Lyly makes use of it when he wishes to portray his characters in distress or excitement, and it most frequently occurs in soliloquies. Sometimes we find a string of these interrogations, at others they are answered by sentences beginning "ay but," and occasionally we have the "ay but" sentence with the preceding interrogation missing. I make a special mention of this point, as we shall find it has a certain connexion with the subject of the origins of euphuism.

The other ornamental device is one which has attracted a considerable quantity of attention from critics, and has frequently been taken by itself as the distinguishing mark of euphuism. In point of fact, however, the euphuists shared it with many other writers of their age, though it is doubtful whether anyone carried it to such extravagant lengths as Lyly. It took the form of illustrations and analogies, so excessive and overwhelming that it is difficult to see how even the idlest lady of Elizabeth's court found time or patience to wade through them. They consist first of anecdotes and allusions relating to historical or mythological persons of the ancient world; some being drawn from Plutarch, Pliny, Ovid, Virgil, and other sources, but many springing simply from Lyly's exuberant fancy. In the second place _Euphues_ is a collection of similes borrowed from "a fantastical natural history, a sort of mythology of plants and stones, to which the most extraordinary virtues are attributed[22]." "I have heard," says Camilla, bashfully excusing herself for taking up the cudgels of argument with the learned Surius, "that the Tortoise in India when the sunne shineth, swimmeth above the water wyth hyr back, and being delighted with the fine weather, forgetteth her selfe until the heate of the sunne so harden her shell, that she cannot sink when she woulde, whereby she is caught. And so it may fare with me that in this good companye displaying my minde, having more regard to my delight in talking, than to the ears of the hearers, I forget what I speake, and so be taken in something I would not utter, which happilye the itchyng ears of young gentlemen would so canvas that when I would call it in, I cannot, and so be caught with the Tortoise, when I would not[23]." And, when she had finished her discourse, Surius again employs the simile for the purpose of turning a neat compliment, saying, "Lady, if the Tortoise you spoke of in India were as cunning in swimming, as you are in speaking, she would neither fear the heate of the sunne nor the ginne of the Fisher." This is but a mild example of the "unnatural natural philosophy" which _Euphues_ has made famous. An unending procession of such similes, often of the most extravagant nature, runs throughout the book, and sometimes the development of the plot is made dependent on them. Thus Lucilla hesitates to forsake Philautus for Euphues, because she feels that her new lover will remember "that the glasse once chased will with the least clappe be cracked, that the cloth which stayneth with milke will soon loose his coulour with Vinegar; that the eagle's wing will waste the feather as well as of the Phoenix as of the Pheasant: and that she that hath become faithlesse to one, will never be faithfull to any[24]." What proof could be more exact, what better example could be given of the methods of concomitant variations? It is precisely the same logical process which induces the savage to wreak his vengeance by melting a waxen image of his enemy, and the farmer to predict a change of weather at the new moon.

[22] Jusserand, p. 107.

[23] _Euphues_, p. 402.

[24] _id._, p. 58.

Lyly, however, was not concerned with making philosophical generalizations, or scientific laws, about the world in general. His natural, or unnatural, phenomena were simply saturated with moral significance: not that he saw any connexion between the ethical process and the cosmic process, but, like every one of his contemporaries, he employed the facts of animal and vegetable life to point a moral or to help out a sermon. The arguments he used appear to us puerile in their old-world dress, and yet similar ones are to be heard to-day in every pulpit where a smattering of science is used to eke out a poverty of theology. And, to be fair, such reasoning is not confined to pulpits. Even so eminent a writer as Mr Edward Carpenter has been known to moralize on the habits of the wild mustard, irresistibly reminding us of the "Camomill which the more it is trodden and pressed down the more it speedeth[25]." Moreover the _soi-disant_ founder of the inductive method, the great Bacon himself, is, as Liebig[26] shows in his amusing and interesting study of the renowned "scientist's" scientific methods, tarred with the same mediaeval brush, and should be ranked with Lyly and the other Elizabethan "scholastics" rather than with men like Harvey and Newton.

[25] _Euphues_, p. 46.

[26] _Lord Bacon et les sciences d'observation en moyen age_, par
Liebig, traduit par de Tchihatchef.

Lyly's natural history was at any rate the result of learning; many of his "facts" were drawn from Pliny, while others were to be found in the plentiful crop of mediaeval bestiaries, which, as Professor Raleigh remarks, "preceded the biological hand-books." Perhaps also we must again allow something for Lyly's invention; for lists of authorities, and footnotes indicative of sources, were not demanded of the scientist of those days, and one can thoroughly sympathise with an author who found an added zest in inventing the facts upon which his theories rested. Have not ethical philosophers of all ages been guilty of it? Certainly Gabriel Harvey seems to be hinting at Lyly when he slyly remarks: "I could name a party, that in comparison of his own inventions, termed Pliny a barren wombe[27]."

[27] Bond, I. p. 131 note.

The affectations we have just enumerated are much less conspicuous in the second part of _Euphues_ than in the first, and, though they find a place in his earlier plays, Lyly gradually frees himself from their influence, owing perhaps to the decline of the euphuistic fashion, but more probably to the growth of his dramatic instinct, which saw that such forms were a drag upon the action of a play. And yet at times Lyly could use his clumsy weapon with great precision and effect. How admirably, for example, does he express in his antithetical fashion the essence of coquetry. Iffida, speaking to Fidus of one she loved but wished to test, is made to say, "I seem straight-laced as one neither accustomed to such suites, nor willing to entertain such a servant, yet so warily, as putting him from me with my little finger, I drewe him to me with my whole hand[28]." Other little delicate turns of phrase may be found in the mine of _Euphues_--for the digging. Our author was no genius, but he had a full measure of that indefinable quality known as wit; and, though the stylist's mask he wears is uncouth and rigid, it cannot always conceal the twinkle of his eyes. Moreover a certain weariness of this sermonizing on the stilts of antithesis is often visible; and we may suspect that he half sympathises with the petulant exclamation of the sea-sick Philautus to his interminable friend:

"In fayth, Euphues, thou hast told a long tale, the beginning I have forgotten, ye middle I understand not, and the end hangeth not well together[29]"; and with this piece of self-criticism we may leave Lyly for the present and turn to his predecessors.

[28] _Euphues_, p. 299.

[29] _Euphues_, p. 248.