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Glite Dictionary
juvenilia

juvenilia

1 9.6
Works an artist or writer made when young
  • noun
  • /ˌdʒuːvəˈnɪliə/
  • Literature
: juvenilia
  • Reading her juvenilia provides insight into the themes she would later explore in her more mature works.

Examples

  • Many famous authors look back fondly on their early juvenilia as a reflection of their growth.

  • Susanna's juvenilia include poetry and many fiction tales for young adults.

    Blog text (22)

  • My theory of darkness was one of my earliest juvenilia, dating from a time when I still lived in the haze of unbroken consciousness.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • Despite the early training and success, and the praise for her apprentice work from William Merritt Chase, O'Keeffe's juvenilia are often unremarkable.

    Academic text (2007)

  • From her early juvenilia to her mature novels, her female characters are vividly portrayed (Gerin, 1967).

    Academic text (1995)

  • We even have a word—juvenilia—for such "literary or artistic works produced in the author's youth" (Oxford English Dictionary).

    Academic text (1991)

  • Plath's education, her juvenilia, the plot of The Colossus and Other Poems, and the final fruits of her troubled poetic muse between 1960 and 1963.

    Academic text (1993)

  • Such is the case with The Crooked Mile, a piece of juvenilia that traces the decline of the frontier from the energetic founders and builders of the first generation to the pillagers and spoilers of the third.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • Lewis Terman (1944) remarked that one of the poems Leta wrote at age 14 "compared favorably with the best juvenilia this reviewer has seen" (pg. 357).

    Academic text (1990)

  • The exhibition featured a section dedicated to the juvenilia of various artists before they became well-known.

Surface Forms

juvenilia singular
juvenilias plural

Morphology

juvenilia = juvenile (semi-transparent) = juvenile + ia

The connection to 'juvenile' (young) is clear, but the Latin-derived suffix '-ia' is non-productive in everyday English and may be unfamiliar, so the collective meaning 'works produced in youth' is not immediately obvious to all learners.

Etymology

The word juvenilia comes from the Latin word juvenis, meaning 'young', and you can see the same root in juvenile. So juvenilia are the early works an author or artist made when they were young.