ABSTRACT
This chapter views on literary criticism to his actual criticism of literary texts, of belles lettres immediately and naturally begs the question in how far Robertson managed to practise what he preached. The fact that Robertson himself was aware that the theory and practice of his criticism existed, as it were, largely on different planes, underscores the need to assess his 'practical' criticism on its own merits. If Robertson is remembered at all in his capacity as a literary critic, it is as a critic of drama, or rather as a Shakespeare critic, since Shakespeare was the subject of most of Robertson's writings on the art of drama. Indeed, Robertson's dauntingly lengthy entry in the British Library General Catalogue proves that Shakespeare criticism took up a considerable portion of the time and energy he managed to spare from so many other large-scale projects.
