The “Laughing Critick”: Thomas Rymer and Burlesque Criticism

Abstract

Thomas Rymer holds the distinction of being the first major writer of English criticism who was not also a poet.¹ He is also noteworthy for being the first English writer to produce book-length works of original criticism. His three critical works—his translation of and preface to René Rapin’s Reflections on Aristotle’s Treatise of Poesie (1674), The Tragedies of the Last Age (1678), and A Short View of Tragedy (1693)—were highly regarded by his contemporaries, and earned him a reputation as a formidable critic and scholar. Yet despite these achievements, Rymer is rarely taken seriously by modern scholars. If he is mentioned at all, it is usually only as a detractor of Shakespeare. Along with the spectacular excesses of the “operatic” version of the Dryden—Davenant Tempest (1674) and Nahum Tate’s happy ending to The History of King Lear (1681), Rymer’s lambasting of Othello in A Short View of Tragedy is generally regarded as a testament to late seventeenth-century bad taste and willful disrespect of the Bard. Indeed, the notoriety of A Short View of Tragedy is largely responsible for George Saintsbury’s oft-cited quip, “I never came across a worse critic than Thomas Rymer.”² Curt Zimansky’s excellent edition of Rymer’s critical works stands almost alone in its effort to examine the critic objectively. But this work has produced little scholarship on Rymer, much less salvaged his reputation as a needling pedant and enemy of Shakespeare.

that pleasant way, is by no means fit for a Critick: a Critick, whose business is to instruct, should keep to the Didactick Stile, as Aristotle, Longinus, and the French Criticks have done: for if a Man is eternally Laughing, how can I possibly fall into his Opinion, who know not if he speaks in good earnest?…when a laughing Critick condemns an Author, how can I know whether he has convicted him by the advantage of his Wit, or the force of his Argumentation?

John Dennis, The Impartial Critick (1693) 1:16.