...rather, they are 'common humanity, such as the world will always supply'. This means that Shakespeare's 'persons act and speak by the influence of those general...passions and principles by which all minds are agitated'. For most writers 'a character is too often an individual', but in the plays of Shakespeare a character...

...been slightly modified. 1 5 Meaning the editing. 16 The social life of the time. 17 Self-interest. always supply, and observation will always find. His...motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species. It is from this wide extension...

...his Preface to Shakespeare (1765) was that they were 'the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will...passions and principles by which all minds are agitated ... In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare...

...of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will...motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species. It is from this wide extension...

...relevance of Johnson's comments to the reading process becomes apparent when he notices how such characters "act and speak by the influence of those general passions...and the whole system of life is continued in motion" 7 (my emphasis). Through a process of identification and differentiation (Johnson clearly values the...

...justifies Shakespeare's canonical preeminence. they are the genuine progeny of common humanity . . . His persons act and speak by the influence of those...and the whole system of life is continued in motion . . . Shakespeare has no heroes; his scenes are occupied only by men, who act and speak as the reader...

...to generate pleasure for Johnson: "Shakespeare is above all writers . . . the poet of nature. . . . His persons act and speak by the influence of those...and the whole system of life is continued in motion" (Shakespeare, I, 61). Novelists like Richardson and Fielding are "engaged in portraits of which every...

...characters; Johnson found an opposite excellence ('In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species': Johnson, 11); and Coleridge's division leads him to both positions at once. On the one hand, 'he brings...

...always supply, and observation will always find. ... In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species ... Shakespeare has no heroes; his scenes are occupied only by men, who act and speak as the reader...

...fabulous, equable, and meticulous plays of the French and their eighteenth-century English imitators.30 "His persons act and speak by the influence of those...the whole system of life is continued in motion." "This therefore is the praise of Shakespeare, that his drama is the mirrour of life . . . from which...