juvenilia

English

Etymology

Latin iuvenilia, neuter plural of iuvenilis “of or pertaining to youth.”

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈdʒuːvɪˈniːljə/

Noun

juvenilia juvenilia plural or collective singular

1. (plural only; not used in singular form) Works produced during an artist's or author's youth.
   • 1693, John Dryden, A Discourse on the Origin and Progress of Satire [1]

     ...rhyme was not his [Milton's] talent; he had neither the ease of doing it, nor the graces of it: which is manifest in his "Juvenilia" or verses written in his youth, where his rhyme is always constrained and forced,...

   • 1996, Kathryn Lindskoog, Light in the Shadowlands [2]

     Lewis’s juvenilia is childlike, and the way it has been handled is childish.

   • 1997, Susan Anne Carlson, “Incest and Rage in Charlotte Brontë’s Novelettes,” in Creating Safe Space, Tomoko Kuribayashi and Julie Tharp edd. [3]

     Though there is a large body of criticism on Brontë’s novels, there are very few interpretations of the juvenilia, [...]

   • 2003, James Fenton, The Strength of Poetry [4]

     The last line, adapted from Coleridge, reminds us that we are never such kleptomaniacs as in our juvenilia.