Journal of English Language Teaching

Aesthetics of Reception: Shakespeare Criticism down the Ages

M S Nagarajan

(Formerly) Professor of English, University of Madras.

Keywords: Reception, Shakespeare Criticism, History

Abstract

An anonymous critic once declared, with a little bit of pardonable jingoism, that if all the writings on Hamlet were to be collected and piled one upon another, it would touch the nearest planet! Fun apart, none can deny that of all writers in this cosmos, it is the Bardof-Avon who has elicited the widest response to his works from all over the world. Lay readers, students, scholars, critics, theatregoers, translators—indeed all of them have marvelled at what Harold Bloom terms him as the ‘human invention.’ It is well-nigh impossible to put together all the reactions which have been so continuously pouring over the four centuries. I intend to restrict myself to the critical output on Shakespeare by established critics ever since the plays were staged.