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XXVI. Shakespearean Criticism in the Tatler and the Spectator
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The contribution made to the liberalization of neo-classical criticism by the small but interesting body of Shakespearean comment in the Tatler and the Spectator, deserves more than the passing mention it has hitherto received. The first to point out the entirely unclassical character of some of this material was apparently John Foster, Victorian biographer and man of letters. He notes specifically the absence of any set analysis or fine spun theory about Shakespeare's art, and the spontaneous outbursts of admiration for his philosophy, poetry, ethics and passion, which characterize much of Steele's remarks. G. A. Aitken, in his edition of the Tatler, refers to Steele's plan for improving the “vitiated tastes” of his contemporaries by means of stage representations of the noble characters of Shakespeare and others. Lounsbury discusses Addison's attitude towards the problems of poetic justice and tragi-comedy. Mr. Harold V. Routh observes that Steele discovered in Shakespeare a sublime moralist of middle class life at a time when a poet was generally valued for his rhetoric rather than for any serious reflections on men and manners. Professor Nichol Smith, in his volume of Shakespearean essays, dwells upon Addison's attitude towards Shakespeare's disregard of the “rules,” that veritable touchstone of neo-classical criticism. These remarks are obviously in the nature of chance observations. No attempt has yet been made, as far as the writer is aware, to examine this critical opinion in its relation to the whole history of eighteenth century criticism of Shakespeare. This, therefore, is the purpose of the present paper.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1924
References
1 John Forster, “Sir Richard Steele,” in Biographical Essays, pp. 172ff.
2 Tatler, ed. Aitken, I, xxii.
3 Cambridge Hist, of Eng. Lit., ix, 42.
4 D. Nichol Smith, Shakespearean Criticism—a Selection.
5 Tatler, 165.
6 “What critic dares prescribe what's just and fit,
Or mark out limits for such boundless wit!“
—Steele's Prologue to Phillips' Dislrest Mother.
7 Spectator, 160.
8 Spectator, 592. Steele expresses similar sentiments in Englishman, 7.
9 Spectator, 592.
10 Johnson's ed. of Shakespeare (1765) vi, 159.
11 Spectator, 40; see also Spectator, 548. For Hughes's attitude towards the “mending” of Shakespeare's plays see Spectator, 539.
12 Spectator, 40.
13 Toiler, 42.
14 Spectator, 44.
15 Spectator, 141. The couplet is from Dryden's Prologue to the Tempest.
16 Lamb, Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets.
17 Spectator, 279; see also Dryden's critical introduction to Troilus and Cressida.
18 Tatler, 53.
19 Tatler, 47.
20 Spectator, 285.
21 Spectator, 61.
22 Tatler, 117.
23 “Rubens if he had painted it, would not have improved upon this simile,” (Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays).
24 Tatler, 137.
25 Tatler, 99.
26 Tatler, 8.
27 Tatter, 71.
28 Tatler, 231.
29 Spectator, 17, 238.
30 Tatler, 188; see also Guardian, 37. 31 Tatler, 90.
32 Spectator, 206.
33 Tatler, 188.
34 Tatler, 42.
35 Tatler, 111.
36 Taller, 71.
37 Spectator, 230.
38 Tatler, 167. In the Tatler, 35 Steele quotes Hamlet's speech to the players as an admirable criterion for the judging of actors and acting.
39 Tatler, 68.
40 Tatler, 182.
41 Taller, 47.
42 Tatler, 68.
43 Ibid.
44 Preface to Troilus and Cressida.
45 Spectator, 210.
46 Spectator, 541.
47 “That it should come to this, etc….” Hamlet, I, iii.
48 Tatler, 106.
49 Tatler, 188.