purple prose

English
WOTD – 13 October 2012

Etymology

Derived from a reference by the Roman poet Horace.[1]

Pronunciation
  • Audio (AU)(file)

Noun
Examples

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”[2]

purple prose (uncountable)

  1. Extravagant or flowery writing, especially in a literary work.
    Coordinate term: beige prose
    • 1932, Harry T. Baker, “Hazlitt as a Shakespearean Critic”, in PMLA, volume 47, number 1, page 198:
      Swinburne is often a very discerning critic in spite of his penchant for purple prose.
    • 1960 October 24, “Book of Lamentations”, in Time‎, archived from the original on 13 April 2008, (review of The Last of the Just by André Schwarz-Bart):
      His persecuted characters bleed purple prose, and he persistently confuses an assault on the nerves with a cry from the heart.
    • 1991, “Unbelievable”, in Schubert Dip, performed by EMF:
      The things, you say / Your purple prose just gives you away / The things, you say / You're unbelievable
    • 2004, Joan Huber, “Lenski Effects on Sex Stratification Theory”, in Sociological Theory, volume 22, number 2, page 261:
      An antibiological bias […] was stimulated by a flood of popular and scholarly books in the 1960s and 1970s (some awash in deep purple prose) saying that male domination was natural and inevitable.

Translations

References
  1. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (c. 10–8 BCE) A. S. Kline, transl., Ars poetica‎ (in Latin): “Onceptis grauibus plerumque et magna professis purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter adsuitur pannus, […] ― Weighty openings and grand declarations often have one or two purple patches tacked on, that gleam far and wide, […] ”
  2. Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1830) Paul Clifford, volume 1, page 1

Further reading
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