Literacy rates in the 1800s were low. Therefore, being literate was a status symbol, and there was more focus on the idea that you could be more literate than someone else. I think what happened in that time was a kind of competition, where critics like these had a tendency to write things that are more difficult to read, in an attempt to prove how much more literate they are. If you wrote something that a plebeian could understand, you're obviously not as literate.
So there was a lot of criticism of the superficial aspects of the writing - "bad rhetoric, involved syntax, stilted sentiment and incoherent English". The words and the "English" are excessively focused on.
Today we take literacy for granted, and anyone who tries to sound more literate is shunned (/r/iamverysmart).
So there was a lot of criticism of the superficial aspects of the writing - "bad rhetoric, involved syntax, stilted sentiment and incoherent English". The words and the "English" are excessively focused on.
Today we take literacy for granted, and anyone who tries to sound more literate is shunned (/r/iamverysmart).