The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Lyly, John

Born in 1553 or 1554, in the county of Kent; died Nov. 27, 1606, in London. English writer. Son of a notary.

Lyly studied at Oxford and Cambridge. In his novels Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1579) and Euphues and His England (1580), Lyly created a literary style rich in rhetorical elements, tropes, and forms taken from ancient mythology or from Pliny’s Natural History. While the euphuistic style influenced Lyly’s contemporaries, including Shakespeare, its mannerism soon made it the object of parody. In such plays as Alexander and Campaspe (1584), Sapho and Phao (1584), and Galatea (1588; published anonymously in 1592), Lyly used motifs from Italian pastorales, transforming farcical clowns into servants, sailors, and woodsmen. Lyly was a direct predecessor of Shakespeare in high comedy.

WORKS

The Complete Works, vols. 1–3. Edited by R. W. Bond. Oxford, 1902. In Russian translation: [“Iz ‘Evfuesa.’ “] Khrestomatiia po zapadno-evropeiskoi literature: Epokha Vozrozhdeniia. Moscow, 1947. Page 476.

REFERENCES

Anikst, A. A. “Angliiskii teatr.” In Istoriia zapadno-evropeiskogo teatra, vol. 1. Moscow, 1956. Page 406.
Hunter, G. R. John Lyly: The Humanist as Courtier. Cambridge, Mass., 1962.

E. V. KORNILOVA

References in periodicals archive

In his commentary on vv.99-143, R A Foakes (1962:55) draws attention to a comparable passage in The two gentlemen of Verona (III.i.293ff.), where the qualities of Launce's mistress are catalogued, and then speculates that both Shakespearean passages are probably indebted to Midas (I.ii.19ff.) by John Lyly (1554-1606), where Licio unfolds 'every wrinkle of my mistress's disposition' in comic vein (Foakes 1962:55).

Landscaping the body: anatomical-geographical bawdy in Aristophanes and Shakespeare, and politically incorrect humour

(1) Christopher Wixson offers a concise survey of the critical literature in "Cross-Dressing and John Lyly's Gallathea."

Clothes Unmake the Woman: The Idiosyncrasies of Cross-dressing in Ana Caro's Valor, agravio y mujer

John Lyly's Saphho and Phao opens at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford on Thursday for a four-date run.

Stage Whispers

The chapter touches on Shakespeare's Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth, and John Lyly's Gallathea (1592) as exemplifying those "queer virgins ...

Pure Resistance: Queer Virginity in Early Modern English Drama

In the final section, the 'Professional Theatre', it examines professional theatrical companies and leading figures such as James Burbage, John Lyly, Kyd, Marlowe, Green and Peele and popular plays produced between 1580 and 1595.

THE WORLD OF PAPERBACKS

Though the book is a monograph, the words 'The plays of John Lyly. .

The Plays of John Lyly: Eros and Eliza

(7) If Sidney implicitly criticizes John Lyly, Hoskins is more direct in remarking that Lyly, 'seeing the dotage of the time upon this small ornament, invented varieties of it; for he disposed the agnominations' (another word for paronomasia) 'in as many fashions as repetitions are distinguished.

'A light and illuding form': Sidney's use of paronomasia

Critics have often commented on the way in which John Lyly raids the classics for material in his first play Campaspe (1584).(1) But it has not been noticed that at one point Lyly also turns to the less august tradition of the popularjest-book as well.

Lyly's 'Campaspe' and the Tudor 'Owlglass.' (English dramatist John Lyly)

The legend of Alexander inspired writers down through the ages, from Plutarch (who wrote of him in Parallel Lives) and Ferdowsi (in the Shah-nameh) to John Lyly, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Jean Racine, Jakob Wassermann, and many others.

Alexander III