Do you consider Ben Johnson's poem William Shakespeare is an unequivocal and whole hearted praise of Shakespeare?

Answer 1

Jonson's verses written to be inserted in the First Folio were not given any title by him. They were a celebrity endorsement of the book. Naturally they are of a laudatory nature (the publishers would not have published any comments along the line of "That Shakespeare? He's a talentless bum"). But they are not so effusive as to sound insincere; on the contrary, they come across as a sincere testimonial by someone who knew and appreciated the work of the playwright. Jonson was a severe critic of everyone's work but his own, so he was bound to find aspects of Shakespeare's work which he disagreed with, but this does not make his praise equivocal--it just makes it well-considered.