Editing William Shakespeare (section)

===Critical reputation===
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{{Main|Reputation of William Shakespeare|Timeline of Shakespeare criticism}}

{{Quote box|align=right|quote=He was not of an age, but for all time.|source=—[[Ben Jonson]]{{sfn|Jonson|1996|p=10}}}}

Shakespeare was not revered in his lifetime, but he received a large amount of praise.{{sfn|Dominik|1988|p=9}}{{sfn|Grady|2001b|p=267}} In 1598, the cleric and author [[Francis Meres]] singled him out from a group of English playwrights as "the most excellent" in both comedy and tragedy.{{sfn|Grady|2001b|p=265}}{{sfn|Greer|1986|p=9}} The authors of [[Parnassus plays|the ''Parnassus'' plays]] at [[St John's College, Cambridge]], numbered him with [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]], [[John Gower|Gower]], and [[Edmund Spenser|Spenser]].{{sfn|Grady|2001b|p=266}} In the [[First Folio]], [[Ben Jonson]] called Shakespeare the "Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage", although he had remarked elsewhere that "Shakespeare wanted art" (lacked skill).{{sfn|Jonson|1996|p=10}}

Between [[Stuart Restoration|the Restoration]] of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below [[John Fletcher (playwright)|John Fletcher]] and Ben Jonson.{{sfn|Grady|2001b|p=269}} [[Thomas Rymer]], for example, condemned Shakespeare for mixing the comic with the tragic. Nevertheless, poet and critic [[John Dryden]] rated Shakespeare highly, saying of Jonson, "I admire him, but I love Shakespeare".{{sfn|Dryden|1889|p=71}} He also famously remarked that Shakespeare "was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there."<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Dryden (1631–1700). Shakespeare. Beaumont and Fletcher. Ben Jonson. Vol. III. Seventeenth Century. Henry Craik, ed. 1916. English Prose |url=https://www.bartleby.com/209/534.html |access-date=20 July 2022 |website=www.bartleby.com |archive-date=20 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220720101326/https://www.bartleby.com/209/534.html |url-status=live }}</ref> For several decades, Rymer's view held sway. But during the 18th century, critics began to respond to Shakespeare on his own terms and, like Dryden, to acclaim what they termed his natural genius. A series of scholarly editions of his work, notably those of [[Samuel Johnson]] in 1765 and [[Edmond Malone]] in 1790, added to his growing reputation.{{sfn|Grady|2001b|pp=270–272}}{{sfn|Levin|1986|p=217}} By 1800, he was firmly enshrined as the national poet,{{sfn|Grady|2001b|p=270}} and described as the "[[Bard]] of Avon" (or simply "the Bard").{{sfn|Dobson|1992|pp=185–186}}{{efn|The "national cult" of Shakespeare, and the "bard" identification, dates from September 1769, when the actor [[David Garrick]] organised a week-long carnival at Stratford to mark the town council awarding him the [[Freedom of the City|freedom]] of the town. In addition to presenting the town with a statue of Shakespeare, Garrick composed a doggerel verse, lampooned in the London newspapers, naming the banks of the Avon as the birthplace of the "matchless Bard".{{sfn|McIntyre|1999|pp=412–432}}}} In the 18th and 19th centuries, his reputation also spread abroad. Among those who championed him were the writers [[Voltaire]], [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]], [[Stendhal]], and [[Victor Hugo]].{{sfn|Grady|2001b|pp=272–74}}{{efn|Grady cites [[Voltaire]]'s ''[[Letters on the English|Philosophical Letters]]'' (1733); [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe's]] ''[[Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship]]'' (1795); [[Stendhal]]'s two-part pamphlet ''Racine et Shakespeare'' (1823–25); and [[Victor Hugo]]'s prefaces to ''[[Cromwell (play)|Cromwell]]'' (1827) and ''[[William Shakespeare (essay)|William Shakespeare]]'' (1864).{{sfn|Grady|2001b|pp=272–274}}}}

[[File:William Shakespeare Statue in Lincoln Park.JPG|thumb|upright=0.75|[[William Ordway Partridge]]'s garlanded statue of William Shakespeare in [[Lincoln Park, Chicago]], typical of many created in the 19th and early 20th centuries]]

During the [[Romanticism|Romantic era]], Shakespeare was praised by the poet and literary philosopher [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], and the critic [[August Wilhelm Schlegel]] translated his plays in the spirit of [[German Romanticism]].{{sfn|Levin|1986|p=223}} In the 19th century, critical admiration for Shakespeare's genius often bordered on adulation.{{sfn|Sawyer|2003|p=113}} "This King Shakespeare," the essayist [[Thomas Carlyle]] wrote in 1840, "does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible".{{sfn|Carlyle|1841|p=161}} The [[Victorian era|Victorians]] produced his plays as lavish spectacles on a grand scale.{{sfn|Schoch|2002|pp=58–59}} The playwright and critic [[George Bernard Shaw]] mocked the cult of Shakespeare worship as "[[bardolatry]]", claiming that the new [[Naturalism (theatre)|naturalism]] of [[Henrik Ibsen|Ibsen]]'s plays had made Shakespeare obsolete.{{sfn|Grady|2001b|p=276}}

The modernist revolution in the arts during the early 20th century, far from discarding Shakespeare, eagerly enlisted his work in the service of the [[avant-garde]]. The [[German Expressionism (cinema)|Expressionists in Germany]] and the [[Futurism|Futurists]] in Moscow mounted productions of his plays. Marxist playwright and director [[Bertolt Brecht]] devised an [[epic theatre]] under the influence of Shakespeare. The poet and critic [[T. S. Eliot]] argued against Shaw that Shakespeare's "primitiveness" in fact made him truly modern.{{sfn|Grady|2001a|pp=22–26}} Eliot, along with [[G. Wilson Knight]] and the school of [[New Criticism]], led a movement towards a closer reading of Shakespeare's imagery. In the 1950s, a wave of new critical approaches replaced modernism and paved the way for [[postmodernism|post-modern]] studies of Shakespeare.{{sfn|Grady|2001a|p=24}} Comparing Shakespeare's accomplishments to those of leading figures in philosophy and theology, [[Harold Bloom]] wrote, "Shakespeare was larger than [[Plato]] and than [[St. Augustine]]. He ''encloses'' us because we ''see'' with his fundamental perceptions."{{sfn|Bloom|2008|p=xii}}