tuckermanity

plural tuckermanities

1. rarePoetry or literature, especially that which is excessively proper or moralist; literature by or in the style of Henry T. Tuckerman.

   The general tuckermanities are arrant / Bubbles — ephemeral and so transparent

   1850, Edgar Alan Poe, “An Enigma”, in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, New York: J.S. Redfield, →OCLC, page 26

   3 more examples

   From his comments on Henry T. Tuckerman, his source for the word “Tuckermanities,” it is manifest that Poe never had any respect for his work.

   1940, Joseph Lee Vaughan, The literary opinions of Edgar Allan Poe, PhD thesis, University of Virginia, page 501

   Also in 1852 came Henry T. Tuckerman's school manual "Sketch of American Literature" appended to Shaw's Outline of American Literature. Written in the starch-collared prose that gave rise to the term Tuckermanity, the sketch was an old-fashioned blend of literary history and moral precept

   1986, Kermit Vanderbilt, American Literature and the Academy, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 91

   Some wag coined the word "tuckermanity," formed on his [Henry Theodore Tuckerman's] name and on the analogy of "humanity," and meaning excessive propriety and conventionality in the literary treatment of love.

   1990, Robert Hendrickson, American Literary Anecdotes, New York: Facts On File, →ISBN, page 223