Definition of "marivaudage" [marivaudage]

• In lit., a style resembling that of Marivaux, whose writings were a mixture of subtle metaphysics and bizarre trivialities, with over-refined sentiments which were mingled with the most ordinary colloquialisms: the word has come to note an affected attempt at refinement. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "The journalist-turned-playwright was damned by the term "marivaudage" from those who believed he was all style over substance, but there have been some notable revivals of his works in recent years, such as Philip Wilson's take on Neil Bartlett's 1960s version of The Game Of Love And Chance at Salisbury earlier this year."
• "The peculiar affectation of his style occasioned the invention of the word marivaudage, to express the way of writing of him and his imitators."
• "The "marivaudage" of Marivaux is sometimes a refined and novel mode of expressing delicate shades and half-shades of feeling; sometimes an over-refined or over-subtle attempt to express ingenuities of sentiment, and the result is then frigid, pretentious, or pedantic."