 Re: Latinate orotundities
Hello Richard,
I think you're right; it was the first passage by Gibbon that came to mind; there are passages more elaborate in his Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire.
I wouldn't consider "several avocations intervened" archaic; if intended seriously, it might be classified as "mandarin" (i.e. the kind of English favoured by the older civil servant); or it might have a mock-humorous tone, in the right context.
"Circumscribed to the decay of the city" I would call "unusual", rather than archaic, in historical writing. It's probably sufficient in itself to identify the passage as Gibbon's.
Other 20th century writers of English prose who resemble Waugh are Ronald Firbank, Lytton Strachey, and Saki. I would say though that the style of Brideshead Revisited is a relatively late development, in Waugh: his earlier works were not quite so elaborate (see for instance the telephone conversations in Vile Bodies; David Lodge presents an interesting commentary on these in his Art of Fiction).
An essay by Cyril Connolly in his 1938 volume Enemies of Promise may interest you. It's called The Mandarin and the Vernacular, and deals with this subject (though it predates Brideshead).
All the best,
MrP  |