...pronounces to be false. It is false, that any representation is mistake for reality; that any dramatick fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited. The objection arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome,...

...and Farquhar are brought forward to justify Shakespeare's disregard of the unities of time and place. 'It is false that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatick fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment was ever credited.' Drama...

...remaining aware of its artifice. It is appropriate to recall Dr Johnson's apparent self-contradiction: 'It is false, that any representation is mistaken...credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited,' and 'Delusion, if delusion be admitted, has no certain limitation.'18 Bethell set himself the task...

...century later, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) in his famous Preface to Shakespeare's plays (1765) stated: "It is false, that any representation is mistaken...credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited." And in 1817 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) added his voice to the defeat of verisimilitude with...

...involved. After having asserted that no "representation is mistaken for realiiy," that no "dramatick fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited," Johnson goes on to argue that credibility derives from the contemplation of the emotional effects:...

...deluded about what is art and what is reality. The crucial sentence is the one I have examined before: "It is false, that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatick fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited."50...

...position, which, while his breath is forming it into words, his understanding pronounces to be false. It is false, that any representation is mistaken for...credible, or. for a single moment, was ever credited. The objection arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome,...

...position which, while his breath is forming it into words, his understanding pronounces to be false. It is false that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatick fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited. The...

...critic, 'by the authority of Shakespeare', that he must assume 'as an unquestionable principle' that '// is false, that any representation is mistaken for...credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited' (my emphasis)3. In our own century, semioticians have refuted the Coleridgean position. In The Semiotics...

...hand, was based on evident absurdities that Johnson, by their mere unambiguous statement, refutes: "It is false, that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatick fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited" (76)....