Johnson was to rally against the visual logic of the doctrine of 
the dramatic unities.

The reduction of the tactile qualities of life and language 
constitute the refinement sought in the Renaissance and 
repudiated now in the electronic age.

*     A major theme of the passionate vernacular nationalists 
brings us to the effect of print in swiftly depriving language of 
many of its tactile qualities. Until the nineteenth century there 
was a common boast of “refinement” of the English tongue 
that had occurred since the sixteenth century. In the sixteenth 
century there was still plenty of brogue and dialect to confer 
tactility and resonance. Even by 1577 Holinshed could feel 
happy about the gradual refinement between the language of 
the Saxons and the relative perfection of his own time. The old