ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on eighteenth-century views of Shakespeare’s language. It considers the high regard in which Shakespeare was held, being compared as he was to figures like Homer and Dante. One result of this heightened status, discussed at length in the chapter, was that editors and critics were concerned to adhere as closely as possible to what he actually wrote. Although the century, like the seventeenth, produced many adaptations of the plays, the emphasis shifted to returning as far as possible to original texts. Attention is also given to the criticisms of Shakespeare’s language which continued to be expressed throughout the period, sometimes regarded as due to Shakespeare’s ‘carelessness,’ but often attributed either to the ‘barbaric’ state of Elizabethan English, or to faulty transmission. The substantial number of Shakespeare editions appearing in the century are considered. The major role Shakespeare citations played in Johnson’s Dictionary is discussed, as are various attempts to produce systematic accounts of his language, such as Upton’s ‘Shakespearean grammatical rules,’ Hurd’s account of Shakespearean word formation, Webb and Capell’s descriptions of his metrical forms.
