The Critics Versus Shakespeare

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The Critics Versus Shakespeare is a classic literary criticism volume by Francis A. Smith that deals with the works of the great bard of Avon.

Ben Jonson said that Shakspere wanted art ; the highest appellate court decided that Lear was a greater work than Euripides or Sophocles ever produced. Voltaire, the presiding Justice in the court of French criticism, decided that Shakspere was votre bizarre sauvage; the world has reversed his decision, and everywhere, except perhaps in France, the Henriade is neglected for Hamlet.

During the seventeenth century, English criticism sought to put Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Otway, Wycherly, Congreve, Cowley, Dryden, and even the madman Lee, above Shakspere. Denham in 1667 sings an obituary to the memory of the immortal Cowley, –

By Shakspere’s, Jonson’s, Fletcher’s lines, Our stage’s lustre Rome’s outshines.