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"[A] play, which I presume to call original": Appropriation, creative genius, and eighteenth-century playwriting
Studies in the Literary Imagination, Spring 2001 by Kewes, Paulina
The eighteenth century did not invent "originality." Yet it was in that period that originality, hitherto conceived as an attribute of the literary work, came to be defined in terms of the creative process that produced it. This shift of emphasis from work to author, from the literary artifact to the mind behind it, stimulated interest in the psychology of artistic creation. There appeared a series of treatises exploring the nature of original genius and illustrating its workings (or lack thereof) with reference to ancient and modern writings. Among the best known are: Joseph Warton's Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756), Young's Conjectures on Original Composition (1759), Duff's Essay on Original Genius; and its Various Modes of Exertion in Philosophy and the Fine Arts, Particularly Poetry (1767) and his Critical Observations on the Writings of the Most Celebrated Geniuses in Poetry. Being a Sequel to the Essay on Original Genius (1770), and Alexander Gerard's Essay on Genius (1774). Despite differences of method and focus, these studies share a number of theoretical premises and often use the same examples, notably Homer, Milton, and Shakespeare. For my purposes, the evaluation of Shakespeare's genius is of particular interest not only because he was a modern, a Briton, and a professional dramatist, but also because his appropriative playwriting-as documented, for example, by Charlotte Lennox in Shakespear Illustrated& or The Novels and Histories, On which the Plays of Shakespear are Founded, Collected and Translated from the Original Authors (1753)-presented the champions of originality with a formidable difficulty. They strove to overcome it by avoiding direct engagement with the evidence of Shakespeare's textual debts amassed by Lennox and others,48 or, alternatively, by maintaining that he refined even "the basest materials."49 They also adopted two distinct if complementary ways of reconceptualizing originality so as to accommodate and excuse those debts. One common ploy was to make a firm distinction between sentiments and expression. "The most original writer," Richard Hurd argues, "is allowed to furnish himself with poetical ideas from all quarters."50 According to this line of argument, Shakespeare's use of ready-made plots is irrelevant, for his originality consists wholly in the singularity and uniqueness of style. Again, Hurd's formulation is the most succinct:
... You will best understand of what importance this affair of expression is to the discovery of imitations, by considering how seldom we are able to fix an imitation on Shakespear. The reason is, not, that there are not numberless passages in him very like to others in approved authors, or that he had not read enough to give us a fair hold of him; but that his expression is so totally his own, that he almost alway [sic], sets us at defiance. (74)
Another tactic was to reverse the Aristotelian hierarchy, with its primacy of fable over any other element of the dramatic structure, and to accord priority to the invention of characters over the invention of plots. Arthur Murphy asserts that "Fable is but a secondary Beauty; the Exhibition of Character, and the Excitement of the Passions, justly claiming the Precedence in dramatic Poetry."51 William Duff concurs: "The invention of characters ... is unquestionably the greatest effort of original Genius."52 Since Shakespeare was the acknowledged master of characterization, his recourse to preexisting stories could be conveniently downplayed and his originality upheld: "If Shakespear therefore excelled in the last more difficult effort of Genius, he might doubtless have excelled in the first, if he had thought it proper to have attempted it."53 There was a fair amount of rhetorical ingenuity, even outright contradiction, involved in such arguments. For one thing, Shakespeare's near-verbatim transcription of some of his sources was common knowledge. For another, the hankering after absolute originality could neither be allayed nor fully satisfied by the claim that he invented "original" characters but inserted them into "unoriginal" plots. As Duff himself admits, "A Poet endued with a truly original Genius, will ... be under no necessity of drawing any of the materials of his composition from the Works of preceding Bards" (248, my emphasis).
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