Literary notes about Bombastic (AI summary)
In literature, "bombastic" is used to denote a style marked by high-flown, ostentatious rhetoric that can either evoke a sense of grandeur or draw criticism for its affected verbosity. Authors and critics describe writing or speech as bombastic when it is overly embellished, with an emphasis on grandiloquence that sometimes borders on absurdity. For instance, one narrative highlights a bombastic proclamation that ultimately resulted in relaxed discipline among troops [1], while another depicts bombastic language as a blend of colloquial informality and inflated expression [2]. Similarly, it is used to criticize writers or speakers who indulge in pompous self-aggrandizement rather than conveying genuine substance [3, 4]. Thus, the term serves as a succinct label for literary expression that prioritizes flowery excess over clarity and depth.
- Pope’s bombastic orders, and his invitation to forage on the enemy, greatly increased straggling and relaxed discipline among his troops.
— from The Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, Volume 2 (of 2) by Hazard Stevens - But it had encouraged a looseness of utterance, a mixture of the colloquial and the bombastic, which was unfortunate.
— from Some Diversions of a Man of Letters by Edmund Gosse - Yes, but if you are told it is also bombastic, can you deny it?
— from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley - He is deep but never turgid, pleasant but never insipid, lofty but never bombastic.
— from Beethoven: A Memoir (2nd Ed.) by Elliott Graeme
