Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit

by John Lyly, Morris W. Croll (editor), Harry Clemons (editor)

"Euphues: The Anatomy of Wyt", a didactic romance written by John Lyly, was entered in the Stationers' Register 2 December 1578 and published that same year. It was followed by Euphues and his England, registered on 24 July 1579, but not published until Spring of 1580. The name Euphues is derived from Greek meaning "graceful, witty". Lyly's mannered style is characterized by parallel arrangements and periphrases.

The style of these novels gave rise to the term euphuism.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Literature, British Literature

253 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1578

About the author

(c. 1553 or 1554 – November 1606) An English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.

Reviews

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never mind the spoiler alert. You will never read this quaint work first published in 1579. The basic plot: Euphues, a handsome and witty (intelligent, glib-tongued) young man from Athens decides to go to Naples to live there. There, an old guy named Eubulus, having seen the troubles young men like Euphues usually get into, advices him to be careful about his ways, his money, and his dealings with women ( "Here, yea here Euphues, mayest thou see not the carved vizard of a lewd woman, but the incarnate visage of a lascivious wanton; not the shadow of love but the substance of lust. My heart melteth in drops of blood to see a harlot with the one hand rob so many coffers and with the other to rip so many corses."). Euphues, however, refuses counsel and, with his brilliant wit, refutes Eubulus's arguments. Thereafter, he befriends another young man, Philautus, and through him gets introduced to the beautiful Lucilla, the apple of Philautus's eye. Lucilla's father owes Philautus money and desires that she marries his creditor. Heedless Euphues, however, allows himself to fall in love with (or to lust after) Lucilla. The latter accepts his love ("It is Euphues that lately arrived here at Naples that hath battered the bulwark of my breast and shall shortly enter as conqueror into my bosom," she tells her father). Euphues, in turn, haughtily abandons his friend Philautus, justifying his betrayal with, again, his wit ("No, no, he that cannot dissemble in love is not worthy to live. I am of this mind, that both might and malice, deceit and treachery, all perjury, any impiety may lawfully be committed in love, which is lawless."). Alas, however, fickle-minded Lucilla falls for another guy. What happened after this, I can't tell you anymore. You may, after all, read this someday so let me not spoil your fun.

Anyways, the significance of this novel is not in its story but in its prose style--affected and high-flown--and this was once the rage in England. This style of writing (or speaking) was called "euphuism" after Lyly's principal protagonist. Here, for example, is Euphues's euphuistic lamentation after Lucilla had dumped him:

"...And therefore farewell Lucilla, the most inconstant that ever nursed in Naples, farewell Naples the most cursed town in all Italy, and women all farewell!...Ah Euphues, into what misfortune art thou brought! In what sudden misery art thou wrapped! It is like to fare with thee as with the eagle, which dieth neither for age nor with sickness but with famine, for although thy stomach hunger, yet thy heart will not suffer thee to eat. And why shouldst thou torment thyself for one in whom is neither faith nor fervency? Oh the counterfeit love of women! Oh inconstant sex!..As therefore I gave a farewell to Lucilla, a farewell to Naples, a farewell to women, so now do I give farewell to the world, meaning rather to macerate myself with melancholy than pine in folly, rather choosing to die in my study amidst my books than to court it in Italy in the company of ladies."

Precisely what we've been doing here at goodreads.com--reading, macerating ourselves with melancholy instead of having romances then later pining in folly.

[Deanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Euphues is eloquent when making his cafe,(can't resist) a book that is about wit. Took time to get to grips with the spelling and the use of letters, but I'm glad I took the time.
The plot is fairly thin, and I'm not going to repeat it, but the arguements are wordy. Euphues has opinions on everything and at first comes across as arrogant, but things change as he grows older.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

What can I say about this? Lyly was an influence on Shakespeare, so certainly worth reading. Nonetheless this was one of the most painfully dull reading experiences of my life.

[dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is most necessary to keep in mind, as Lyly puts it, "Englishmen desire to hear finer speech than the language will allow." In Euphues’ departure from Athens, “the nurse of wisdom,”—to borrow Milton’s later phrasing, “the…mother of arts/And eloquence”—Lyly alludes to the degradation of wisdom and eloquence as it distances itself from its source; the figurative ‘light of learning’ that was born in Athens has grown dim, he suggests, as it arrived in an England that cannot sustain it. The style of Euphues is characterized by the same excessive, superficial eloquence that Naples presents to the—literal and figurative—Athenian: extensive use of antitheses, similes, sententiae, and commonplaces. They are therefore not only a medium that delivers the text, but a willing, crucially hyperbolical, participant in Lyly’s perceived English ‘failure’: an ongoing, futile attempt to occupy the literary space left behind by classical rhetoric. Lyly thus constructs the ornate prose style and story of Euphues to illustrate the inadequacy of English intelligence—because the most cleverly refined English is nonetheless incapable of, and therefore does disservice to, the “perfectness of wisdom.”

In that sense, it is unreasonable to say that Lyly's Euphues is hypocritical in its superfluous eloquence. I would suggest that hyperbolic style of Euphues functions as satire, critiquing the unavoidable degradation of wisdom that follows translatio studii et imperii. I feel that Lyly had a very honest, and very serious, desire to make Euphues comparable to antiquity. He is aware of this being an impossible task, and his ornate style is an admission of that fault. In the same way that one might put lipstick on a pig, Lyly knows that the English language is the 'pig,' so to speak, and applying more lipstick only makes the result more ridiculous (and the pig no less a pig). Lyly, then, is Pygmalion, and Euphues is his Galatea. As beautiful as he carves his statue, it is not a woman...and it can never become one, no matter how much Lyly may pray to Aphrodite.

[Julian Munds · Rating 2 out of 5]

The influence of this work is more valuable then the actual reading of it. It's a slog to read if you dont have the power of the knowledge behind the thoughts. There is style being born here. The plot, like all didactic euphuistic (see?) works is irrelevant to the lengthy treatises on God and love. In this modern world it is irrelevant in subject matter and great in style.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was a bit hard to get into at first, but this is one of those books that gets better every time you read it. The literary devices and conceits are rich, and there’s always more to be discovered. Though it’s a comedy, it still has integrity as a work, and you glean more from it every time you read it — it is what you put into it!

[Bob Kaufman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting writing style but wasn't a fan of the content.

[Kaitlyn Vasvari]

Another one that is basically unreadable! I wish I wasn't abandoning books so often, but I couldn't make heads or tails of this one. 1001 list, shape up!

[Mi Althaus · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate him

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, You pretty things, get witty and vintage all over your literary derrieres!

[Marilyn]

(from Wikipedia) There are multiple candidates for first novel in English partly because of ignorance of earlier works, but largely because the term novel can be defined so as to exclude earlier candidates:

Some critics require a novel to be wholly original and so exclude retellings like Le Morte d'Arthur.
Most critics distinguish between an anthology of stories with different protagonists, even if joined by common themes and milieus, and the novel (which forms a connected narrative), and so also exclude Le Morte d'Arthur.
Some critics distinguish between the romance (which has fantastic elements) and the novel (which is wholly realistic) and so yet again exclude Le Morte d'Arthur.
Some critics distinguish between the allegory (in which characters and events have political, religious or other meanings) and the novel (in which characters and events stand only for themselves) and so exclude The Pilgrim's Progress and A Tale of a Tub.
Some critics require a novel to have a certain length, and so exclude Oroonoko, defining it instead as a novella.
Some critics distinguish between the picaresque (which has a loosely connected sequence of episodes) and the novel (which has unity of structure) and so exclude The Unfortunate Traveller.

Due to the influence of Ian Watt's seminal study in literary sociology, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (1957), Watt's candidate, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), gained wide acceptance.

[Jon Krampner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, more novella than novel, is remarkable.

It's an early Elizabethan work, published a few years before Shakespeare came to London. It's written in a hyper-flowery style since known as Euphuism.

The story isn't much: an Athenian goes to Naples, makes a friend, steals the friend's girlfriend and then gets dumped by her for a third guy. But you read it for the style: the sentences are more ornamented than your typical Christmas tree. If you're in the mood for that sort of thing, it's a lot of fun.

I didn't read the version I'm appending these comments to; ideally the one you get will provide glosses for some of the words no longer current in English. It's worth taking on, though: you won't find anything else like it.

[Aileen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although only 150 pages, this was a real slog. Written in 1578, there was a slight story to the first part, but oh so wordy and rambling, then several essays to finish off with. Glad to have ticked this one off the 1001 list. The fun part was in reading something that Queen Elizabeth I might just have read too.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I dip into this from time to time. The language is full of metaphors that list and often those lists expand as they lengthen, one metaphor over the prior, which is more or less invented here and was in its day coined Euphuism. It's very addicting but only (for me) in brief doses at a time, which is why I haven't read this straight through.