SOURCE: "The Prose Style of John Lyly," in ELH, Vol. 23, No. 1, March, 1956, pp. 14-35.

In the following essay, Barish comments on Lyly's employment of the techniques of euphuism in his prose romances and demonstrates their use in his plays as well.

Lyly's prose style, especially that of Euphues, has been studied so often and so exhaustively in the past that further observations on it are likely to appear impertinent, especially if they attempt no radical reformulation. However, the major work of description has been complete for some decades now, and little has been added except for occasional further explorations into the literary origins of Euphuism. It may, therefore, be useful to glance once again at this familiar territory, with two objects in view: first, to try to correlate certain categories of Lyly's style with categories of meaning, and second, to restate some general principles governing all of his...