Jejune – not nourishing; barren; not satisfying; not interesting; dull and flat
Imbroglio – a confused heap; an involved and confusing situation; state of confusion and complication; a confused misunderstanding or disagreement; entanglement
“These experiences gave [Longfellow] a deep first-hand understanding of love’s frustrations and sorrows. Such experiences underlie much of his work, including some jejune stuff like the posturings of the lovesick protagonist in Hyperion, but also his best, like the affectionately comic imbroglio in Miles Standish, the somber tenderness of Evangeline, and the more keenly tragic pathos of “The Cross of Snow” (1879), Longfellow’s sonnet written in memory of his second wife’s death.”
Lawrence Buell, in the introduction to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Selected Poems