Literary notes about Grandiloquence (AI summary)
Writers employ the term "grandiloquence" to both exalt and critique a style of language marked by lofty exaggeration and pomp. In some works, it serves as a pejorative for overwrought speech that alienates rather than captivates its audience, as when it is depicted as a tiresome excess that undermines genuine mysticism [1] or renders sentimental expressions ludicrous [2]. In other contexts, however, it is used to underline a contrast between genuine heartfelt simplicity and a contrived display of erudition, highlighting characters who swing from earnestness to bombastic verbiage [3, 4]. Even when seen in the playful banter of youthful language or in satirical accounts of political rhetoric, grandiloquence functions as a marker of an affected style that can either amuse or repel the reader [5, 6].
- Analysis is a terrible humiliation to your mysticism and your grandiloquence—and an awful bore to those who depend for effect on either.
— from Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863Devoted to Literature and National Policy by Various - “But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle—how excessively odd!
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Edgar Allan Poe - Let him look to himself!" From earnestness to grandiloquence was but a step.
— from Under the Rose by Frederic Stewart Isham - Bombast and grandiloquence he shunned, nay, he rather courted the other extreme of severe simplicity.
— from The Poems of Leopardi by Giacomo Leopardi - Smith could not help smiling at the grandiloquence of the child's language, for in spite of her height, he realized that her years were but few.
— from The Princess Pocahontas by Virginia Watson - ‘Until further notice,’ I said, with grandiloquence, ‘I request that no one may come into this room.
— from Wilfrid Cumbermede by George MacDonald
