...which we may suppose to be stamped on Works by the Suffrage of Antiquity, the Writer proceeds thus: 'Shakespeare is above all Writers, at least above all modern Writers, the Poet of Nature...'. [Quotes pp. 57-60, including Dennis's complaint that Menenius in Coriolanus is a buffoon.] Has not...

...eighteenth century. The highest praise that Johnson could lavish on Shakespeare was that he was above all writers 'the poet of nature; the poet that holds up...readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life' (Preface to Shakespeare, 1759). The legacy of P.'s characterisation of the artist's activity in terms...

...life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth. Shakespeare...nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life. (pp. 61-61) Johnson used the phrase "general nature" for the first...

...the plays: From Samuel Johnson, Preface to his edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare (1765) • Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all...nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places,...

...threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe. —Othello (5.2.343-48) Samuel Johnson was persuaded that "Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above...up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and life."1 His great tragedies in particular explore the devious vices that wreak havoc on humankind.2...

...Deutschland, 2 vols, I. Ausgewählte Texte von 1741 bis 1785, Berlin: Schmidt Verlag 1982, 98-100, 100. Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all...up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and life.2 Damit wird Shakespeare nicht nur als Norm für die klassisch-romantische Literatur in Deutschland...

...der Samuel Johnson in seinem berühmten Vorwort zu seiner Shakespeare-Ausgabe von 1765 genannt hatte: Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all...up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and life. 2 Damit wird Shakespeare nicht nur als Norm für die klassisch-romantische Literatur in Deutschland...

...interpreter of Shakespeare, he has famously expressed a general viewpoint which I readily endorse: "Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above...nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life. His characters ... are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such...

...people in the eighteenth century thought differently. One of those people was Samuel Johnson. He wrote: Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all...not modified by the customs of particular places, unpracticed by the rest of the world His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions...

...and in the eighteenth century it surfaced most powerfully in Dr Johnson's defence of Shakespeare as 'the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life' 1Johnson 1984, 421). In discussion of the novel in particular, the image of the mirror has repeatedly...