ABSTRACT
Unremarkably few critics have chosen to comment on Two Maids, but those few have frequently registered their dismay at Armin’s style. The earliest evaluation is that of Alexander B. Grosart, who cannot believe that Armin is responsible for the play’s “unformed and unpracticed style,” 1 blaming instead the copyist, the printer, or a corrupt text. He says,
Words are occasionally misused, as by a foreigner…. But the ungrammatical interconstructions and imitations of sense, rather than sense proper, belong to the corrupt text, not the author. I am the more convinced of this by the easily noted fact that the higher the language soars, the lower does it degenerate into rant, fustian, and unintelligibility. 2
