John Lyly

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John Lyly

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

John Lyly , 1554?-1606, English dramatist and prose writer. An accomplished courtier, he also served as a member of Parliament from 1589 to 1601. His Euphues, published in two parts ( The Anatomy of Wit, 1578, and Euphues and His England, 1580), was an early example of the novel of manners and was one of the most influential works of its time. In it Lyly tried to establish an ideal of perfected prose style, which was actually convoluted and artificial (see euphuism ). His early plays, the most notable being Campaspe (1584) and Endimion (1591), followed Euphues in their elaborate style, but his later work, specifically Mother Bombie (1594), employed the realistic, robust manner of Roman comedy. His Woman in the Moon (1594?) was a a successful experiment in blank verse. Shakespeare and other Elizabethan playwrights were indebted to him for his innovation of prose as the vehicle for comic dialogue and for his development of the romantic comedy.

Bibliography: See his complete works edited by R. W. Bond (new ed. 1967); studies by G. K. Hunter (1962 and 1968) and P. Saccio (1970).

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Lyly, John

World Encyclopedia | 2005 | © World Encyclopedia 2005, originally published by Oxford University Press 2005. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Lyly, John (1553–1606) English poet, dramatist, and writer of prose romances. His prose comedies and pastoral romances include Sappho and Phao (1584), Endymion: the Man in the Moon (1591), and Midas (1592). Lyly is best known for the elaborate prose style that he evolved in Euphues (1578).

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

Free Article Endymion: John Lyly and The Plays of John Lyly: 'Eros and Eliza'.
Magazine article from: Yearbook of English Studies; 1/1/1999
Free Article Fictions of Authorship in Late Elizabethan Narratives: Euphues in Arcadia.(Book review)
Magazine article from: Yearbook of English Studies; 1/1/2008
Free Article Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.(Review)
Magazine article from: New Criterion; 12/1/1998

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"I would faine serve": John Lyly's Career at Court.(comedy plays)
Magazine article from: Comparative Drama; 12/22/2000; ; 700+ words ; The most common assumption about John Lyly's court comedies has been that they...as the basis for an understanding of Lyly's "meaning." I would like to shift...focus somewhat by looking at the ways Lyly's plays reflect upon his own career...
Endymion: John Lyly and The Plays of John Lyly: 'Eros and Eliza'.
Magazine article from: Yearbook of English Studies; 1/1/1999; ; 700+ words ; Endymion: John Lyly. Ed. by David Bevington. (The Revels...206 pp. [pound]40. The Plays of John Lyly: 'Eros and Eliza'. Ed. by Michael...1996.xv+205 pp. [pound]40. John Lyly is the most famous of the many now unread...
The victim of fashion? Rereading the biography of John Lyly.(essay)(Critical essay)
Magazine article from: Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England; 1/1/2006; ; 700+ words ; We have looked at Lyly's Euphues and his plays as literary experiences...Warwick Bond's monumental edition of Lyly's work, published at the start of the...material that can be firmly attributed to Lyly in the fifteen-year period prior to his...
A borrowing from Suetonius's Life of Caligula in Lyly's Midas.(Essays)(Critical essay)
Magazine article from: ANQ; 6/22/2008; ; 700+ words ; John Lyly's Midas has often been seen as an allegorical...Bevington, eds. Galatea and Midas. By John Lyly. 1592. New York: Manchester UP, 2000...Anne Begor, ed. Gallathea and Midas. By John Lyly. 1592. London: Edward Arnold, 1970...
Cross-Dressing and John Lyly's Gallathea.(Elizabethan author)(Critical Essay)
Magazine article from: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900; 3/22/2001; ; 700+ words ; ...of class subversions to gender subversions regarding the narrative and historical incarnations of cross-dressing in John Lyly's Gallathea (1583-85) has still not been worked out thoroughly enough, especially regarding whether or not those...
The Language of Framing.
Magazine article from: Shakespeare Studies; 1/1/2000; ; 700+ words ; AT THE END OF JOHN LYLY'S 1580 prose narrative, Euphues and...do justice to the glory of Elizabeth, Lyly says that the Glass is a frame rather than...though he presume not to paynt hir."(1) Lyly fabricates a classical authority for his...
The Fey Beauty of A Midsummer Night's Dream: a Shakespearean comedy in its courtly context.
Magazine article from: Shakespeare Studies; 1/1/2004; ; 700+ words ; ...in his 1902 multivolume edition of John Lyly's works. (4) Despite Bond...led G. K. Hunter in his 1962 book John Lyly: The Humanist as Courtier to adopt...David Bevington's 1966 essay "John Lyly and Queen Elizabeth: Royal Flattery...
Scenes of Instruction in Renaissance Romance.(Book review)
Magazine article from: Philological Quarterly; 1/1/2008; ; 700+ words ; ...is a selection of canonical texts: John Lyly's Euphues, Sir Philip Sidney's...one nevertheless wonders whether Lyly's courtly fictions, Euphues and...political positions. Dolven ranks Lyly among "the most ambitious romancers...
Review of Fictions of Authorship in Late Elizabethan Narratives: Euphues in Arcadia.(Book review)
Magazine article from: Early Modern Literary Studies; 5/1/2007; ; 700+ words ; ...1992 5253X. Steve Mentz St. John's University mentzs@stjohns...plea that the works of Greene, Lyly, Gascoigne, Lodge, and Nashe...including George Whetstone and John Grange, and later John Lyly and Robert Greene, attempted...
Endymion au carrefour: La fortune litteraire et artistique du mythe d'Endymion a l'aube de l'ere moderne.(Book review)
Magazine article from: Renaissance Quarterly; 9/22/2007; ; 700+ words ; ...world by the Renaissance playwright John Lyly, whose play diagnoses a full-blown...became famous in the Romantic vision of John Keats's epic poem (Endymion, 1818...Conegliano (Endymion, ca. 1510) and Lyly than with Keats's silvery text and...

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