One could easily pick out a few brilliantly effective
examples of each class: but as their characteristic is to fade when
uprooted from the soil in which they grow, they would take up space to
very little purpose.
But there is another historic influence, besides that of euphuism, which
has been hurtful, though in a minor degree, to the development of a
sound style in dialogue. Some of the later Elizabethans, and notably
Webster and Ford, cultivated a fashion of abrupt utterance, whereby an
immensity of spiritual significance--generally tragic--was supposed to
be concentrated into a few brief words. The classic example is
Ferdinand's "Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle. She died young," in _The
Duchess of Malfy_. Charles Lamb celebrated the virtues of this pregnant,
staccato style with somewhat immoderate admiration, and thus helped to
set a fashion of spasmodic pithiness in dialogue, which too often
resulted in dense obscurity. Not many plays composed under this
influence have reached the stage; not one has held it.
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