Literary notes about TAWDRY (AI summary)
Literary authors employ the term "tawdry" to evoke notions of gaudiness and cheapness, often contrasting superficial ornamentation with an underlying lack of genuine quality. In many narratives, characters and settings are described with a derogatory use of the word, signifying everything from overdone theatrical showiness to crass, ill-conceived decoration ([1], [2], [3]). Its usage extends to settings where even the most delicate adornments—be it a theatrical costume or a piece of landscape—are imbued with a sense of vulgarity and false elegance, as in the descriptions of party halls or ceremonial processions ([4], [5], [6]). Overall, "tawdry" becomes a tool for authors to critique both material pretensions and cultural decay, enriching the narrative with irony and a subtle moral judgment ([7], [8]).
- It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and cornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - The dignity of scenic decoration, of which he had not the smallest idea, was completely sacrificed to the most ridiculous and tawdry showiness.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner - Long lines of dull brick houses were only relieved by the coarse glare and tawdry brilliancy of public houses at the corner.
— from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle - It seemed so tawdry what he had offered her—mere money—compared with what she offered him.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London - " "My son, don't say such dreadful things," murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - Its tawdry staginess, its "Sadler's Wells sarcasm," its constant striving after strong effects, are distressing to good taste.
— from Collections and Recollections by George William Erskine Russell - She dozed much less frequently, and was beginning to be inclined to agree that tawdry was the word to apply to her past.
— from The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim - What I saw struck me as tawdry, not grand; as grossly material, not poetically spiritual.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë
