...this quality leads to "incongruity" and detracts from Cymbeline's overall effectiveness: "To remark on the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct,...in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation."4 For Granville-Barker,...

...simply a failure. Dr. Johnson, in his edition (1765), found the play's complex dramaturgy too much: To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity...evident for detection and too gross for aggravation. Modern critics have often resorted to the word "experimental" to describe the remarkable assemblage...

...fancy. She quotes at length Johnson's scathing conclusion to his remarks on this play, which ends: To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity...evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation. "How would a modern author writhe," remarks Inchbald, "under a critique that should accuse his drama,...

...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...

...judgements, for example that on Cymbeline: This play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some pleasing scenes, but they are obtained at the...of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecillity, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation. (Johnson 1986, p....

...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...