Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare

The eighteenth century invented Shakespeare as we know him. Long before the Romantic poets elevated him to divine status, a generation of critics grappled with his works on their own terms, wrestling with questions of dramatic unity, moral instruction, and theatrical propriety that still preoccupy us today. This collection gathers essential essays from that formative period, revealing a tradition of sophisticated literary criticism that the nineteenth century too hastily dismissed. David Nichol Smith resurrects voices that deserve to be heard: critics who praised Shakespeare's natural genius while also demanding he be held to classical standards, who saw in his works both sublime inspiration and troubling excess. These essays demonstrate that the eighteenth century was not a dark age of misunderstanding but an active dialogue that shaped Shakespeare's canonical status. For anyone curious about how literary reputations are made and remade, this book reveals the debates that produced the Shakespeare we inherited.