In Fielding's Journey from this World to the Next the author comes upon Shakespeare in Elysium, standing between the actors Betterton and Booth, who are disputing about the exact emphasis of a line from Othello. Shakespeare is very lofty about it all: 'it is so long since I wrote the line, I have forgot my meaning,' but if any of their conjectures is right, 'it doth me very little honour.' He is then asked about 'some other ambiguous passages in his works' and, as is proper for an author talking to critics, deals even more haughtily with those who 'gird themselves at discovering obscure beauties in an author': 'The greatest and most pregnant beauties are ever the plainest and most evidently striking; and when two meanings of a passage can in the least ballance our judgments which to prefer, I hold it a matter of unquestionable certainty that neither of them is worth a farthing.'

LRB 18 February 1982 | PDF Download