English Language · English Literature

Given below are two statements: one is labelled as Assertion A and the other is labelled as Reason R: Assertion A: In the 18th-century literary landscape, Samuel Johnson defended Shakespeare's disregard for the classical unities of time and place by asserting that the audience's pleasure arises from an awareness of fiction and imaginative sympathy rather than a literal delusion of reality. Reason R: This critical perspective prioritizes the 'just representation of general nature' over rigid Aristotelian rules, an aesthetic principle that connects the works of Augustan satirists like Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift with the emerging middle-class realism developed by novelists such as Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding. In light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below: