Shakespeare, Rule-Breaking and Artistic Genius: The Case of Sir John Soane

Abstract

This chapter examines the authority Shakespeare provided in the eighteenth century and Romantic period as a rule-breaker whose genius transcended both Classicism and the Gothic. Specifically, it considers his appeal to the architect John Soane, who referred to Shakespeare’s plays (not always accurately) in his lectures to the Royal Academy and whose house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields exemplified the eclecticism Shakespeare’s ‘infinite variety’ supposedly mandated. It discusses Shakespeare criticism by Alexander Pope, Elizabeth Montagu, and Samuel Johnson, as well as the ideas of Soane’s associates John Britton, Joseph Gandy, and Barbara Hofland. Rudd argues that Shakespeare acted as an authority for Soane to reconcile both personal crises and stylistic divisions between Neo-Classicism and Romanticism.