...Soseki scholars had hardly ever pointed out. As Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote, "A quibble was to Shakespeare the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world and was content to lose it"; I suggest that Shakespeare might be replaced with Soseki in this context. (Soseki was indeed a punster.)...

...beyond the point where it warranted praise hence the indulgence in quibbles, or "fatal Cleopatra[s] for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it" (p. 74). Johnson praises comedy, and he criticizes tragedy. But the scene, not the play, is the unit...

...which he [Shakespeare] will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight that...which he lost the world, and was content to lose it. (Vickers, v. 68) Today Shakespeare's quibbles, often cut in production, may seem trivial and tedious;...

...mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. ... A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight that...by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. — PRIESTLEY (Lectures, 1777, p. 224): The word grace is used in three senses in this passage; and...

...clenches' (1 672; in Watson 1962: I 178-9) or Dr Johnson, a century later, censures Shakespeare, because 'a quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it' (1765: 23-4). In lamenting Milton's propensity to pun, Addison portrays it as the vice of an age now...

...Preface, 'has some malignant power over [Shakespeare's] mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. It was to him the fatal Cleopatra, for which he lost the world and was content to lose it.' — ED. 29. past care, etc.] MALONE : ' Things past redress are now with me past care.' — Rich. II:...

...Dr Johnson says that a quibble had ' a malignant power over Shakespeare's mind,' and that it was;to him 'the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it;' so that I do not object to a pun here as beneath the dignity of the Doge or of the occasion, but because...

...two words were pronounced alike. 'A quibble,' says Dr Johnson, in his Preface, ' was to Shakespeare the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world and was content to lose it.' — ED. 118. Brat] MURRAY (JV. E. £>.): Of uncertain origin; Wedgwood, E. Muller, and Skeat think...

...says of ' the malignant power ' which a quibble had over the mind of Shakespeare, to whom it was ' the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world and was content to lose it ' ; I recall that he could make dying men play nicely with their names ; and yet with all this in mind,...

...reappraisal entails Samuel Johnson, 'Preface to Shakespeare' (1765; London: 1778). p. 19. 'A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight, that...by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth.' "' Jonathan Swift, 'A Modest Defence of Punning', in Prose Works, ed. Herbert Davis 12 vols. (Oxford:...