Lyly, John - Richard A. McCabe (essay date 1984)
Richard A. McCabe (essay date 1984)
SOURCE: "Wit, Eloquence, and Wisdom in Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit," in Studies in Philology, Vol. LXXXI, No. 3, 1984, pp. 299-324.
[In the following excerpt, McCabe describes how Lyly demonstates that Euphues's wit hinders his self-knowledge and is ultimately destructive.]
Discussing Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, C. S. Lewis remarks that "it is no kindness to Lyly to treat him as a serious novelist; the more seriously we take its action and characters the more odious his work will appear."1 The modern reader is inclined to agree, but Lyly's contemporaries might not. Lewis' observations contain a certain amount of truth, but truth of a rather anachronistic kind. Lyly did intend the work to be taken seriously, yet he never set out to produce anything even resembling a modern novel. That his intentions were far different is clear from his subtitle: The anatomy of wit very...
[The entire page is 7858 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
