SOURCE: "Introductory Essay," in The Complete Works of John Lyly, Oxford University Press, Ely House, London, 1902, pp. 135-64.

In the following excerpt, Bond praises Lyly for his constant attention to form, and examines his writing style, its sources, and its influence on Shakespeare and other writers.

…Euphuism,¹ the characteristics and origin of which have just been indicated, is important, not because it eminently hit the taste of its day, but because it is, if not the earliest, yet the first thorough and consistent attempt in English Literature to practise prose as an art; the first clearly-defined arch in the bridge that spans the gulf between the rambling obscurities of Chaucerian prose, such as that of the unknown author of The Testament of Love, and the lucid nervous paragraphs of our own essayists. Preceding prose had either paid little attention to form, or, being translation, had been hampered by...