ABSTRACT
The appropriation of Shakespeare in the eighteenth century has become a commonplace topic: scholars have deftly illuminated the various and contesting ideologies built into the mythological construct of Shakespeare and his plays. Among the multitude of appropriations, Michael Dobson shows that Shakespeare was “assimilated to a common agenda of domestic virtue,” and more specifically, was transformed into an exemplar of bourgeois morality (14). Dobson highlights the frequent servings of sagacious Shakespearean quotations in periodicals, especially the Whig-oriented Tatler and Spectator, draws attention to the typical practice of altering passages of the plays to more suitably moral ends, and remarks on “the wide-spread determination to find a common morality” in Shakespeare’s plays (214). While such investigations have shed light on Shakespeare’s enormous popularity, the focus on the historically contingent and socially invested readings of his works tends to overstate the determined, constructed nature of literary meaning. I shall argue that Shakespeare’s works were a source of moral instruction, especially in the mid-to late eighteenth century, not simply because they were invested with moral meaning, but also because readers and critics recognized great value in the intrinsic properties of the plays; the most prized property of Shakespeare’s works was his art of characterization.
