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comparative more Parnassian, superlative most Parnassian
Of or relating to Parnassus, as the source of literary (especially poetic) inspiration; (hence) of or belonging to poetry. quotations examples
King Atlas called straight to minde an auncient prophesie Made by Parnassian Themys, which this sentence did implie: The time shall one day, Atlas, come in which thy golden tree Shall of hir fayre and precious fruite dispoyld and robbed bee.
1565, Arthur Golding, The Fyrst Fower Bookes of P. Ovidius Nasos Worke, Entitled Metamorphosis, Translated Oute of Latin into Englishe Meter, London: W. Seres, translation of Metamorphoses by Publius Ovidius Naso, published 1567
There is a certain poetic ground, on which a man cannot tread without feelings that enlarge the heart: the causes of human depravity vanish before the romantic enthusiasm he professes, and many who are not able to reach the Parnassian heights, may yet approach so near as to be bettered by the air of the climate.
1771, Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling, London: Cassell, published 1886, page 119
(poetry, from Gerard Manley Hopkins' writings) Describing a style of poetry or language which can only be created by poets, but not in the language of inspiration. quotations examples
[…] at last, — this is the point to be marked, - they can see things in this Parnassian way and describe them in this Parnassian tongue, without further effort of inspiration.
1864, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and prose, Penguin Books, published 1954, page 157
But in Parnassian pieces you feel that if you were the poet you could have gone on as he has done, you see yourself doing it, only with the difference that if you actually try you find you cannot write his Parnassian.
1864, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and prose, Penguin Books, published 1954, page 158
'Behold', 'dream a dream', 'mingle': these here have something of the plangent tremulousness which comes when Tennyson is writing 'Parnassian' verse.
1989, Christopher Bruce Ricks, Tennyson, page 212
One might be tempted to read this conjoining of exoticism and sensuality as a Parnassian exercise, until one reads the rest of the poem: […]
c. 2002, Émile J. Talbot, Reading Nelligan, McGill-Queen's University Press, page 166
(literature, historical) Of or relating to the Parnassianism movement of French poetry in the years 1850 to 1900, whose adherents rejected Romanticism and instead favored classicism with its formal structure and emotional detachment. quotations
The Parnassian theory of art is mere imbecility.
1895, Degeneration, New York: D. Appleton and Company, translation of Entartung by Max Simon Nordau, page 270
plural Parnassians
(rare) A poet.
A French poet of the Parnassianism movement. examples