Colors

Purple Prose

"Purple prose" is an expression used to describe overly ornate or flowery language. “Repeatedly, in the hotel's brochures, it is referred to as a 'landmark' or a 'palace' rather than a hotel. In prose that veers well toward purple, the Emirates Palace Web site welcomes visitors to 'an enchanting landmark that's a wonder to behold for all who venture through its magnificent gates...a majestic experience fit for a king and deserving of an emperor.' And, in what seems to be a slap at the promotional claims of the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, which says it has seven stars, the frequently asked questions section notes that 'the seven or six star ratings do not officially exist...We classify Emirates Palace as just that, a Palace.’”—Katherine Zoepf, “The Land with the Golden Hotel,” The New York Times, March 8, 2006.

The expression comes from the Ancient Roman poet Horace, who described "purple passages" in his work Ars Poetica. In Horace's time, purple dye was expensive and was something that only the wealthy could afford.

How It's Used

“In ‘Amy’s View,’ which opened last night at the Barrymore Theater, Ms. Dench plays an actress with a capital A, the kind who inspires critics to purple prose every time she sets foot on a stage.”

“The television drama 'ER' ran a purplish three-episode story with Bob Newhart playing a builder of architectural models who develops AMD [age-related macular degeneration], descends into depression and finally puts a gun to his head.”

"Equally graceless is Fisher's predilection for the breathless chapter or section ending, the result, perhaps, of reading too many Victorian novels as part of the commendably wide research he obviously undertook in preparation for writing House of Wits: 'Little did he know the kind of heiress that was waiting for him.' 'But in the meantime a more immediate draw was unfolding in Harry's and Alice's lives.' 'Quincy Street harboured a grim secret that Alice, the neglected girl and youngest child of the family, knew best of all.' 'No, Harry didn't plan to get married. But he now contemplated a stroke almost as bold.'

“'The Master,' as Henry James Junior latterly instructed his friends to address him, would have blushed to see such portentous purple prose attached to his family name."

"...eating oysters alive is the whole point. No seafood can be fresher. Or, to me, more enticing: their frilly, fleshy, glistening plumpness displayed so perfectly on their pearly shell. Nothing cries, 'Eat me!' louder.

"Then, wonder of wonders, they turn out to be even better to devour than to behold. The first splash of cold brine on the tongue creates a thirsty hunger that is wholly sated by the sweet, creamy, seaweedy, buttery, minerally flesh. A couple of chews search out all the complexities of texture and flavour—an ocean of pleasures. Finally comes one of the most pleasing swallows of any food I know, as the masticated creature plunges willingly down the gullet. And then I reach for another one.

"But I realise, if you've already decided you don't like oysters, that my purple prose, far from persuading you, is merely driving a wedge deeper and farther between you and this esteemed mollusc."

"The Donmar's star-studded West End season, at Wyndham's, was mainly greeted by wild applause. But 'Madame de Sade' was a bewildering anomaly, an absolute stinker. Yukio Mishima's costume drama—penned in 1960s Japan, set in 18th-century Paris and cruelly rescued from obscurity by Michael Grandage—proved to be flabbergasting garbage dolled up in lavish frocks. A handful of ladies stood around, blathering about the sexploits of the Marquis de Sade, and the notorious sadist never even showed up. Think 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' without any actual liaisons. Playing his incomprehensibly adulatory wife, Rosamund Pike spouted meaningless purple prose ('He is a threshold between me and the impossible, or perhaps between me and God' etc.) while our diminutive national treasure, Judi Dench, was all pursed lips. Rigged out in a pyramidical wig and ruched silk, she looked like a morally outraged Walnut Whip. Torture."

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