Charles Lamb (writer)

The most ambiguous example of all, however, is surely the line in King Lear that appeared originally (in the Quarto edition of 1608) as БЂњswithald footed thrice the old, a nellthu night more and her nine fold.БЂ«Though the sentence has appeared in many versions in the four centuries since, no one has ever got it close to making convincing sense. БЂњShakespeare was capable of prolixity, unnecessary obscurity, awkwardness of expression, pedestrian versifying and verbal inelegance,БЂ«writes Stanley Wells. БЂњEven in his greatest plays we sometimes sense him struggling with plot at the expense of language, or allowing his pen to run away with him in speeches of greater length than the situation warrants.БЂ«Or as Charles Lamb put it much earlier, Shakespeare БЂњruns line into line, embarrasses sentences and metaphors; before one idea has burst its shell, another is hatched out and clamorous for disclosure.БЂ«Shakespeare was celebrated among his contemporaries for the speed with which he wrote and the cleanness of his copy, or so his colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell would have us believe ...»