Samuel johnson criticism on the plays of william shakespeare
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Tomarken provides a study of Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare, showing how they raise issues of direct concern to modern critics and theoreticians. He focuses on eight plays to demonstrate the range of Johnson's editorial and critical abilities: Henry IV, Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, The Tempest, Hamlet, and Macbeth. Each chapter, devoted to single play, moves from the particular to the general - from specific remarks about the play in the Notes, to related theoretical statements in the Preface, and finally, to an axiom of literary theory. Ranging from a formulation concerning ideology in criticism to a reconsideration of aesthetic empathy, these axioms are, Tomarken contends, essential to literary criticism as a discipline and manifest Johnson's relevance to modern criticism