Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A false or affected classicism.
Etymologies
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Examples
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It was pompous and effete with pseudo-classicism; foreign influences were strong; in the speech of the upper circles there was an over-fondness for
Taras Bulba 2003
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Pope (1871) speaks of a “pseudo-classicism, the classi - cism of red heels and periwigs” (Literary Essays, Bos - ton [1891], IV, 8).
CLASSICISM IN LITERATURE REN 1968
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It was pompous and effete with pseudo-classicism; foreign influences were strong; in the speech of the upper circles there was an over-fondness for German, French, and English words.
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Deserted Village 'the influence of pseudo-classicism and of Johnson appears; but Goldsmith's treatment of the form, with his variety in pauses and his simple but fervid eloquence, make it a very different thing from the rimed couplet of either Johnson or Pope.
A History of English Literature Robert Huntington Fletcher
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Although the 'Augustan Age' must be considered to end before the middle of the century, the same spirit continued dominant among many writers until near its close, so that almost the whole of the century may be called the period of pseudo-classicism.
A History of English Literature Robert Huntington Fletcher
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The days are over, when every petty German prince must create in his domains a servile imitation of the stiff parks of Versailles, -- the days of powdered wigs and long cues, -- when French ballet-dancers gave the tone, and French actors strutted on every stage, -- when Boileau was the great canon of criticism, and Racine and Molière perpetuated in tragedy and comedy a pseudo-classicism.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 41, March, 1861 Various
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Raphael Mengs was a born genius spoiled by the coldness, the pseudo-classicism, the artificiality and eclecticism of the eighteenth century.
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Johnson's importance as a conservative was greatest in his professional capacity of literary critic and bulwark of pseudo-classicism.
A History of English Literature Robert Huntington Fletcher
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Last, and not least: Jonson's revolt from romanticism to classicism initiated, chiefly in non-dramatic verse, the movement for restraint and regularity, which, making slow headway during the next half century, was to issue in the triumphant pseudo-classicism of the generations of Dryden and
A History of English Literature Robert Huntington Fletcher
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The chief representative of pseudo-classicism in its most particular field, that of poetry, is Dryden's successor, Alexander
A History of English Literature Robert Huntington Fletcher
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