...absurd and ridiculous to the last degree'. Johnson was to write with similar contempt of the same play: 'To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity...evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.' So much for Cymbeline. Johnson inordinately admired Mrs Lennox, and it would be interesting to know...

...to be charitable with Cymbeline and then gives up. ' To remark the folly of the fiction', he says, 'the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the...faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.'28 We watch him do the predictable, let fly with one of his favourite indignations, when...

...Coker," V. 272 "aristocrat of middlebrows, Dr. Johnson.": Johnson wrote of Cymbeline, for example: 'To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity...of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecillity, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation." See Johnson on...

...Shakespeare's plays during the Age of Reason, sums up in one tremendous sentence the irrationality of its plot: To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity...evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation. M Shakespeare never invented story material if he could borrow it, and in Cymbeline he borrowed from...

...Shakespeare's plays during the Age of Reason, sums up in one tremendous sentence the irrationality of its plot: To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity...faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.14 Shakespeare never invented story material if he could borrow it, and in Cymbeline he...

...the exact opposite ofCymbeline, of which the Doctor remarked in one of his more wondrous passages: "To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity...evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation." After such attitudes of balance, we ask, what forgiveness? What counts, with Johnson and indeed all...

...disaster: To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names, the manners of different times, and the impossibility...faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.64 One early theory proposed that Shakespeare had lent his name and a few scenes to a script...

...remark expresses the same bewilderment much more drastically: To remark the folly of the fiction and the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the...events in any system of life, were to waste criticism on unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection and too gross for aggravation.23 Well,...