SOURCE: "Shakespeare's Empirical Romance: Cymbeline and Modern Knowledge," Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 22, No. 3, Fall, 1980, pp. 322-42.

In this essay, Hunt refutes early criticism of Shakespeare's convoluted language as a major fault in the play, arguing that the playwright's dialogue deliberately relates to the dramatic structure and tone.

"In narration," Dr. Johnson memorably observed in his Preface (1765), Shakespeare "affects a disproportionate pomp of diction and a wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few. . . . Not that always where the language is intricate the thought is subtle, or the image always great where the line is bulky; the equality of words to things is very often neglected, and trivial sentiments and vulgar ideas disappoint the attention, to which they are recommended by sonorous epithets and swelling figures."¹ Dr. Johnson's famous indictment includes a certain...