Neo-classical Criticism:

Neoclassic period in England covers nearly 180 years of art history, beginning with the restoration of
Charles II in 1660. It is worthwhile to remember that the term "neoclassical" has several connotations,
based on the context in which it is discussed. For example, neoclassicism in Germany refers to
cultivation of Greek culture in opposition to Roman values. This essay focuses on the foundations and
the salient features of the tradition of criticism which flourished during the neoclassical period in
England.

Critics:
1. Alexander Pope
2. Dr.Samuel Johnson
3. Joseph Addison (1672-1719),
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Generally speaking, Neoclassicists were traditionalist who believed that literature was an art to be
perfected by study, discipline and practice. Perhaps the larger objective of the neoclassical age may be
summarized through Pope's epitaph to the monument erected in Westminster Abbey in the memory of
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) memory.
It reads:
Nature and Nature's Laws lay hid in Night
God said let Newton be! and All was Light !
The purpose of an author was to carry forward Newton’s mission in the domain of literature and
describe the eternal truths of nature in the best manner possible. As Pope puts it in An Essay on
Criticism (1711), it was to represent in words "what oft was thought, but never so well expressed."

Neo-classical Criticism – Influential factors:

The classical revival in England was triggered by European Renaissance. While Homer, Hesiod, Aristotle,
Plautus, Virgil, Horace and Seneca, among others, were studied in both grammar schools and
Universities of England, the Neoclassicists borrowed heavily from Italian and French critics'
interpretations of 'classical rules.'
1. One of the major influences on English neoclassicism was Pierre Corneille (1606–1684).
In 1637, Corneille's play La Cid was berated by critics for flouting ( breaching) classical norms.
Responding to these charges Corneille wrote a number of plays with a view to showcase his mastery
over classical rules and in 1660 produced Trois Discours sur le poème dramatique (Three Discourses on
Dramatic Poetry), where he argued fervently for the need to attune Greco-Roman values to modern
sensibilities. These sentiments were later echoed by Johnson in his "Preface to the plays of
Shakespeare."

2. Another major influence on English Neoclassicists was Frenchman Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1

November 1636 – 13 March 1711), often known simply as Boileau, was a French poet and critic.
He did much to reform the prevailing form of French poetry, in the same way that Blaise
Pascal did to reform the prose. He was greatly influenced by Horace.
In 1674 Boileau's L'Art poétique (in imitation of the Ars Poetica of Horace) and Le Lutrin were published
with some earlier works as the L'Œuvres diverses du sieur D.... Boileau rules on the language of poetry,
and analyses various kinds of verse composition. He influenced English literature through the translation
of L'Art poétique by Sir William Soame and John Dryden, and their imitation in Alexander Pope's Essay
on Criticism.
Of the four books of L'Art poétique, the first and last consist of general precepts, inculcating mainly the
great rule of bon sens; the second treats of the pastoral, the elegy, the ode, the epigram and satire; and
the third of tragic and epic poetry.
The Lutrin, a mock heroic poem, of which four cantos appeared in 1674, is sometimes said to have
furnished Alexander Pope with a model for the Rape of the Lock, but the English poem is superior in
richness of imagination and subtlety of invention.
In 1674 Boileau published his translation of Longinus' On the Sublime, making Longinus' ideas available
to a wider audience, and influencing Edmund Burke's work on the same subject. In 1693 he added some
critical reflections to the translation, chiefly directed against the theory of the superiority of the
moderns over the ancients as advanced by Charles Perrault.

3. To a great extent, Augustanism was premised on a similar model of secular hero worship.
Between the execution of Charles I and the restoration, the institution of monarchy lost its divine
aura. Under the changed circumstances, comparison between Charles II and the sacred sources
of authority had become untenable. Consequently, propelled by historical similarities and the
need to secure legitimacy for the new king, parallels were drawn between Augustus (27 BCE-14
CE) and Charles II. Thus Pax Romana became the ideal for Pax Britannica.
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Alexander Pope ( 1688-1744)

 An Essay on Criticism is one of the first major poems written by the English writer Alexander
Pope (1688–1744).
 It is the source of the famous quotations "To err is human, to forgive divine," "A little learning is
a dang'rous thing" (frequently misquoted as "A little knowledge is a dang'rous thing"), and "Fools
rush in where angels fear to tread."
 It first appeared in 1711 after having been written in 1709, and it is clear from Pope's
correspondence that many of the poem's ideas had existed in prose form since at least 1706.
 Composed in heroic couplets (pairs of adjacent rhyming lines of iambic pentameter) and written
in the Horatian mode of satire, it is a verse essay primarily concerned with how writers and
critics behave in the new literary commerce of Pope's contemporary age.
 It is divided into three sections, which deal with
I. The need of studying the principles of taste and improving out judgement by studying the
ancients and holding them in high esteem
II. Causes that hinder correct judgement
III. Functions of a critic
 The poem covers a range of good criticism and advice, and represents many of the chief literary
ideals of Pope's age.

Pope contends in the poem's opening couplets that bad criticism does greater harm than bad writing:

'Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill

Appear in Writing or in Judging ill,
 But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' Offence,
To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense
Some few in that, but Numbers err in this,
Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss;
A Fool might once himself alone expose,
Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose. ... (1–8)
Despite the harmful effects of bad criticism, literature requires worthy criticism.
Pope delineates common faults of poets, e.g., settling for easy and cliché rhymes:

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:

While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
With sure returns of still expected rhymes;
Wher'er you find "the cooling western breeze",
In the next line, it "whispers through the trees";
If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep",
The reader's threatened (not in vain) with "sleep" ... (347–353)

Throughout the poem, Pope refers to ancient writers such as Virgil, Homer, Aristotle, Horace and
Longinus. This is a testament to his belief that the "Imitation of the ancients" is the ultimate standard
for taste. Pope also says, "True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who
have learned to dance" (362–363), meaning poets are made, not born.

As is usual in Pope's poems, the Essay concludes with a reference to Pope himself. Walsh, the last of
the critics mentioned, was a mentor and friend of Pope who had died in 1710.

An Essay on Criticism was famously and fiercely attacked by John Dennis, who is mentioned mockingly
in the work. Consequently, Dennis also appears in Pope's later satire, The Dunciad.

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The Dunciad was first published in three books anonymously, with the authorship finally acknowledged
in 1735. The entire work was initiated by the poet laureate Lewis Theobald’s reaction to Pope’s edition
of Shakespeare. The poem attacks Dulness in general, making Theobald its first hero. Eventually, all the
authors of the day whom Pope disliked received attention. Individual invective, however, is extended to
literary vices in general, in both the 1728 version and the later versions where Theobald is replaced as
leading dunce by Colley Cibber.

The first book is organized into three parts.

 Part 1 describes the reign of Dulness.
 Part 2 consists of games in which poets, critics, and booksellers contend. The focus seems to be
on the critics and their games, tests to decide if they can stay awake while certain material is
read for them. Spectators and critics both fall asleep.

 Book 3 has the king transported to the Elysian Fields, where he has visions of the past and future
triumphs of the empire of Dulness and how they shall extend to the arts and sciences.

The general scheme of the poem shows Pope’s reliance upon John Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe (1682) and
upon classical models. It begins, in fact, with a parody of the Aeneid (c. 29-19 b.c.e.; English translation,
1553) in its invocation, directed to the patrons whose purses inspire the dull writing.
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Samuel Johnson: “Preface to Shakespeare”

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Samuel Johnson, the son of Michael, a bookseller, was born at Lichfield, Staffordshire, on September
18, 1709. At an early age, he contracted a tubercular infection from his nurse that left him physically
handicapped with bad eyesight and partial deafness. Later, a bout of smallpox left him with facial scars.
In spite of his handicaps, he was determined to be independent and did not accept help from others. He
was unable to play regular sports but made up by learning other skills:boxing, swimming, leaping and
sliding on frozen lakes and ponds.He first went to Lichfield grammar schools and later to Stourbridge. At
both schools, he was acknowledged as a leader, both by his teachers and his fellow-students. After a
gap of two years, he went to PembrokeCollege, Oxford University and studied there for thirteen
months but had to leave in 1729 because of financial difficulties. He was fiercely independent and
refused any kind of charity. While at Oxford, he had only one pair of torn shoes with his toes coming
through and one night, a manplaced a pair of new shoes in front of his room and when Johnson found
them the next morning, he threw them away in anger and wounded pride. Once out of Oxford, he went
into depression for nearly two years and fearing that he might become insane, even contemplated
suicide. At this time, he also developed a compulsive tic that remained with him for the rest of his life.

In 1732, Johnson went to Birmingham. Here the Porters helped him get out of his depression and regain
his self-confidence.Elizabeth Porter appreciated and cared for Johnson and in 1735, after the death of
her husband, she married Johnson, twenty years his senior.In the same year, Johnson published his first
book, a translation. With the financial support of his wife,Johnson opened a private school and David
Garrick, who later became a famous actor of the day, was one of his pupils here. However, the school
venture was not a success and he and Elizabeth moved to London in 1737.

 In London, he earned a meagre livelihood, working as translator and writer. While at Litchfield
and London, he wrote his tragedy Irene. He wrote regularly for the Gentleman’s Magazineand
contributed prefaces, short biographies, essays, reviews, and poems.
 His poem,London: A Poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal, published in May 1738,
made his reputation. Pope pronounced that the author of this poem would become famous.
 In 1744, Johnson wrote An Account of the Life of Mr. Richard Savage, Son of the Earl Rivers, a
revealing life account of his mysterious friend, Richard Savage.Today this is recognized as a
significant milestone in the art of writing “critical biography”.
  The year, 1745 proved a literary turning point in Johnson’s life. He published a pamphlet on
Macbeth that won him Warburton’s praise, which he valued highly, because it came at a time
when he most needed it.
 At this time, he also began thinking about publishing an English Dictionary. In 1746, he signed an
agreement with a group of publishers, accepting a payment of 1575 pounds. The Italians
published a dictionary in 1612, which took them 20 years to prepare. The French dictionary
published in 1694, engaged 40 scholars, who took 55years to prepare it and then another 18
years to revise it. The Oxford English Dictionary, which was a collaborative work of more than 70
scholars, took nearly 70 years to complete.
 Johnson planned to complete his ambitious project in three years but it took him nearly eight
years to complete. This in itself was a remarkable achievement. The dictionary was published in
1755. His financial condition improved once Johnson received 1,575 pounds for the project.
 In 1749, Johnson published his much-acclaimed poem, “The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Tenth
Satire of Juvenal”.
 In the following years, he wrote a large number of essays for his journal The Rambler.
 In 1759, Johnson published his brilliant work Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.
 In October 1765, Johnson’s last great work, The Plays of William Shakespeare, which had been
delayed for so long, was published.
The last period of Johnson’s life was spent in the company of his friends, especially the Thrales and
James Boswell. On 17 June 1783, Johnson suffered a stroke.He made great efforts to overcome it,but
was also plagued by various other ailments. He died quietly on 13 December 1784. On his death, his
friend William Gerard Hamilton, Member of Parliament, paid a great tribute to him sayingthat Johnson
had left a chasm that no man could fill. His friend and admirerBoswell later went on to write The Life of
Samuel Johnson, which presents Johnson as an extraordinary man.
Preface to Shakespeare* (1765)
In 1756, Johnson published his Proposal for printing by subscription, the Dramatic Works of William
Shakespeare, corrected and illustrated by Samuel Johnson. Once the subscription was advertised,he
received a large sum of money personally. He foolhardily promised to bring out the work in a year’s time
but unable to bring it out at the promised time, he came under scathing attacks, especially by the poet
Charles Churchill. The upbraiding in verse by Churchill made him restart work on his edition of
Shakespeare. It was finally published in eight volumes, octavo size in 1765, and nine years after the
publication of the Proposal.
 The collection has a Preface (72 pages in Johnson’s first edition), which is acknowledged as the
best part of the edition and considered a great piece of neo-classical literary criticism. The
 Preface enumerates Shakespeare’s “excellencies” as well as his “defects. His biographer and
friend Boswell states: “A blind indiscriminate admiration of Shakespeare had exposed the British
nation to the ridicule of foreigners. Johnson, by candidly admitting the faults of his poet, had the
more credit in bestowing on him deserved and indisputable praise"(Boswell 491).

 The Preface has two sections: one dealing with Johnson’s critical analysis of Shakespeare as a
dramatist, and the other part dealing with an explication of the editorial methods used by
Johnson in his Edition of Shakespeare.
 Johnson begins the Preface by asserting that people cherish the works of writers who are dead
and neglect the modern. Johnson partly agrees with the 18th century critics that antiquity be
honored, especially in the arts, as opposed to the sciences because the only test that can be
applied to them is that of “length of duration and continuance of esteem”. He states that if a
writer is venerated by posterity, it is a proof of his excellence and he cites the example of
Homer. He says the ancients are to be honored not merely because they are ancient but because
the truths that they present have stood the test of time.
 He then applies this criterion to Shakespeare: Shakespeare “may now begin to assume the
dignity of an ancient, and claim the privilege of established fame and prescriptive veneration. He
has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit” (5).
 In his analysis of Shakespeare, Johnson adopts a multidimensional approach. He examines the
bard’s works from different angles and presents him as timeless and universal, but he also
presents him as a product of his age and time. As a neo-classicist, he tries to maintain a
structural balance of praise and blame for Shakespeare. He adopts an“ahistorical and a
historical” approach to our understanding of Shakespeare (Desai 5).
 He tries to make a distinction between the appeal of Shakespeare to his contemporaries and to
future generations. He says that since times and customs have changed, the depiction of the
particular manners of Shakespeare’s age, are no longer of interest to contemporary audiences. In
his opinion,Shakespeare continues to be admired not for depicting the customs and manners of
his own age but for the representation of universal truths: “

Shakespeare “a poet of Nature”

 In the first part of the Preface Johnson praises Shakespeare as “a poet of Nature”, who “holds
up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life”: all his characters be they Romans,
Danes or kings represent general human passions and principles common to all humans . In
 Johnson’s view, Shakespeare’s scenes are populated “only by men, who act and speak as the
reader thinks he should himself have spoken or acted on the same occasion” .
 Another merit he finds in Shakespeare is that though Shakespeare’s characters depict universal
human passions, yet they are distinctly individualized. He also appreciates Shakespeare for not
focusing only on the passion of love but dealing with different kinds of passion exhibited by
humankind.
 He refutes the charge levelled against Shakespeare by critics that Shakespeare represents noble
characters of different nations as buffoons and drunkards. He considers these charges ‘petty
cavils of petty minds”.
 He concludes with a metaphorical tribute to Shakespeare: “The stream of time, which is
continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets; passes by the adamant of
Shakespeare” .
 He views Shakespeare’s plays as neither tragedies nor comedies but as just representations
“exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow”.
While the ancients concentrated on producing either comedy or tragedy and no Greek or Roman
author attempted to do both, Shakespeare possessed the genius to do both in the same
composition. Johnson considers this mingling justified as Shakespeare’s plays both “instruct
and delight”. Nor does he feel that the mixing of tragic and comic scenes in any way diminish or
weaken the passions the dramatist aims at representing on the other hand he feels that variety
contributes to pleasure.
 Shakespeare – A Genius in Writing Comedy
Johnson considers Shakespeare a genius in writing comedy.He agrees with Rhymer that Shakespeare
possessed a natural flair for comedy. He thinks Shakespeare had to toil hard for the tragic scenes but the
comic scenes appear to be written with great spontaneity:
“His tragedy seems to be skill.
His comedy to be instinct” .

He asserts that Shakespeare obtained his comic dialogues from the common intercourse of life and
therefore their appeal has not diminished over time.

Shakespeare’s Faults
After his praise of Shakespeare, Johnson goes on to point out the faults of Shakespeare.
 1. Johnson distinguishes between art and life. He says the audience is always aware that they are
watching a fictionalized representation and can enjoy tragedy only for this reason, although the
enjoyment is directly proportional to the realism with which the characters are depicted.
2. As a true neo-classicist, Johnson is extremely didactic in his approach to Shakespeare. He
believes that however true to life an artist proposes to be, the creative artist may not sacrifice
“virtue to convenience”. Johnson thinks Shakespeare is more concerned about pleasing than
instructing. In the eyes of Johnson, Shakespeare lacks a clear and distinct moral purpose and
sometimes seems to write without any moral purpose at all. He disapproves of Shakespeare
on moral grounds: “
In this connection, in his notes on King Lear, he condemns Shakespeare for sacrificing the virtue of
Cordelier: “Shakespeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the
natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and, what is yet more strange, to the faith of
chronicles” (Johnson in Desai 155). He goes on to say:
A play in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry may doubtless be good, because it is a
just representation of the common events of human life; but since all reasonable beings naturally love
justice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or, that if other
excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of
persecuted virtue.(155)
3. Johnson also finds faults with Shakespeare’s plots and thinks they are loosely formed and not
pursued with diligence. He finds this reflected in Shakespeare’s neglect to utilize the
opportunities that come his way to instruct and delight.
4. Additionally, he adds that Shakespeare seems not to labour enough towards the ending of his
plays such that “his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented” .
5. He also finds Shakespeare guilty of violating chronology and verisimilitude relating to time and
place for “ he gives to one age or nation , without scruple, the customs, institutions and opinions
of another”(36). He criticizes Shakespeare for making Hector quote Aristotle in Troilus and
Cressida and also critiques him for combining the love of Theseus and Hippolyta with that of the
Gothic mythology of Fairies.
6. Although Johnson lauds Shakespeare’s skill in writing comic scenes, yet he does not gloss over
the faults. He finds Shakespeare’s language coarse and the jests gross in many comic dialogues.
He comments that the gentlemen and ladies indulging in these coarse exchanges appear to be
no different than the clowns. Johnson cannot excuse Shakespeare even if this coarseness was
prevalent in Shakespeare’s time, for he thinks that as a poet he should have known better.
7. The meanness, tediousness and obscurity in Shakespeare’s tragedies Johnson considers the
undesirable effect of excessive labor. He finds Shakespeare’s narration often verbose and
prolix, full of verbiage and unnecessary repetition. He also accuses Shakespeare of not matching
his words to the occasion. His set speeches he finds “cold and weak” and designed by
Shakespeare to show his knowledge but resented by the reader. At times, he finds Shakespeare’s
language high sounding and not appropriate to the sentiment or the thought he wishes to
express.
8. “Repeatedly Johnson finds Shakespeare’s tragic scenes marred by a sudden drop in emotional
temperature caused by some infelicity of language – a pun,a conceit, a hyperbole” (Desai 77).
Johnson directs a scathing attack on Shakespeare’s fondness for a quibble. He describes
Shakespeare’s love for a quibble through various amusing analogies. He says a quibble was to
him “the golden apple for which he will stoop from his elevation” or “the fatal Cleopatra for
which he was willing to lose the world and was content to lose it” (44). Desai remarks: “had
Shakespeare been a lesser poet, Johnson’s expectations would have been proportionately
modest. But with Shakespeare the potential is always so great; the fulfilment sometimes
inadequate. In short, Johnson’s criticism of Shakespeare’s tragic scenes is born out of his
admiration for him” (Desai 77).
9. Shakespeare’s Violation of The Unities -Shakespeare violated the law of the unities of time and
place established and recognized by both dramatists and critics. 18th century critics considered
this violation a defect in Shakespeare. Johnson disagrees and thinks it is possible to defend
Shakespeare on this account. He argues that the Histories by virtue of their very nature need to
keep changing time and place and additionally since they are neither comedies nor tragedies,
they remain outside the purview of violation. He believes that Shakespeare, apart from the
Histories, maintains the unity of action and follows the Aristotelian rules. His plots have a
beginning, middle and an end and the plot also moves slowly but surely towards an end that
meets the expectations of the reader. However Johnson acknowledges that Shakespeare does
neglect to follow the unities of time and place that have been held in high esteem since the
time of Corneille, but according to him, the rules are not founded on tenable principles. His
critical analysis reveals their irrelevance. He says that the critics insist on the observance of the
unities of time and place, as they believe it contributes to dramatic credibility. They hold that the
audience would find it difficult to believe in an action spread over many months and years when
the actual stage performance lasts only three hours. In addition, since the audience is seated in
the same place for the duration of the play, their belief would be strained if one action takes
place in Alexandria and the other in Rome. To refute these arguments Johnson states that all art
 is artifice and that the audience too is aware of this. His argument is that if the audience sitting in
a theatre in London can believe in the reality of the first act taking place in Alexandria, then they
can very well imagine the second act taking place in another country. By the same logic, the
spectators can imagine the lapse of months or years between acts. However, he argues the
audience is not totally incredulous; rather, the audience is, as would be stated later by Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, in a “willing suspension of disbelief”. Johnson states that tragic actions would
not give pleasure if the audience thought that it was all happening in reality on stage. The real
source of pleasure lies in the fact that the enactment brings realities to mind.
 Shakespeare and Elizabethan England -In Johnson’s analysis of Elizabethan England, England
emerges as a nation “just emerging from barbarity” where “literature was yet confined to
professed scholars, or to men and women of high rank” and the general public was raised on
popular romances . Johnson states that very often Shakespeare uses these familiar and popular
romance sources as the building blocks for his plays so that the not-so-learned spectators could
easily follow the story.
 In the absence of any established facts about Shakespeare’s learning, Johnson believes that
Shakespeare did not know French and Italian and that what he borrowed from foreign sources
was borrowed from English translations of foreign works. Johnson asserts that since English
literature was yet in its infancy in Elizabethan England,Shakespeare had no English models of
drama or poetry to follow - neither character nor dialogue was yet understood. Therefore,
Johnson considers Shakespeare a pioneer who introduced character and dialogue into drama.
He attributes Shakespeare’s excellence not so much to learning but to his own genius.
 Shakespeare is the pioneer of English drama - the originator of the form, the characters, the
language and the performances. Shakespeare was the first playwright to establish the harmony
of blank verse and to discover the qualities of the English language for smoothness and harmony.
Shakespeare was the first successful playwright whose tragedies as well as comedies were
successful and gave appropriate pleasure.
 Shakespeare’s Texts -The rest of the Preface concentrates on the lack of availability of authentic
texts, Shakespeare’s carelessness in not getting his plays published, the various emendations
made by critics since the time of Shakespeare until Johnson’s own time, and his own editorial
methods.

 Most of Shakespeare’s plays were published almost seven years after his death. Johnson is
critical about Shakespeare’s indifference to getting his plays published and for writing for
 immediate profit and pleasure. He says that not only did Shakespeare not care to leave
authentic versions of his plays for posterity; rather, even the few that were published in his
lifetime did not get his attention and scrutiny. As a result, corrupted texts with alterations and
additions based on conjecture survived and created confusion and obscurity. He feels other
causes too contributed to the corruption of the texts: (a) the printing method (b) the use of
copiers(c) the mutilation of speeches by actors who wished to shorten them and (d)
Shakespeare’s own ungrammatical style of writing.
Johnson’s Editorial Method
1. Johnson had access to all the above given editions while writing his own edition. In the Preface,
he acknowledges his debt to his predecessors and includes all their Prefaces. In a way, Johnson
is to be credited with bringing out a variorum edition of Shakespeare’s plays.

2. Johnson not only commented on the merits and faults of the earlier emendatory critics but
also included the different versions of lines and passages of the available texts and the
subsequent emendations along with his own notes and emendations.

3. Johnson states that his edition of Shakespeare’s plays carries three kinds of notes
(a) illustrative: to explain difficulties
(b) judicial: to comment on “faults and beauties”
(c) emendatory: to correct corruptions in the text.

4. He acknowledges that he exercised restraint in making the emendations and was “neither
superfluously copious nor scrupulously reserved” (131).
5. Johnson states that he has been successful in shedding light on some obscure passages and
made them more understandable to the readers. However, with great humility he accepts that
there are many others passages that he himself was unable to understand and leaves their
interpretation to posterity.
6. Johnson also states that he treads the middle ground between “presumption and timidity” by
trusting in those publishers “who had a copy before their eyes” and also avoids too much
conjectural criticism ( academic)

Johnson’s Advice to the Readers

Johnson advises the readers to enjoy the complete play first without interruption and without
thinking about the obscurities. Only when the pleasure of novelty ceases should the reader turn to his
notes to understand and appreciate individual lines and passages and get more enjoyment. Johnson
exhorts the readers to form their own judgement about Shakespeare’s plays. He thinks notes are
“necessary evils”and proclaims that he wishes to serve only as a guide and instructor. He cautions the
readers not to go by his judgement of praise or condemnation, as his judgement might be flawed. He
also humbly acknowledges that his work is not perfect.
Johnson ends his Preface by once again acknowledging Shakespeare’s greatness and dismissing the
views of those who did not find him learned by stating that “he was naturally learned; he needed not
the spectacles of books to read nature” and that he possessed the “largest and most comprehensive
soul”.
Johnson’s Achievement
Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare, even by modern standards is an exemplary piece of literary criticism
although it does have its limitations. Johnson boldly went against the grain of his time in defending
Shakespeare for not following the unities of time and place and for mingling tragic and comic
elements. He considered the text superior to any rules and his judgement depended on how the text
affected him and not on whether it followed the rules or not. Johnson can also be credited with giving
critics the comparative and historical basis of criticism. Many of his judgements of Shakespeare are so
insightful that modern generations can only repeat his judgments on Shakespeare’s universality and in-
depth understanding of human nature. Johnson’s editorial method though deficient by modern
standards was yet way above that of the earlier editors and editors of his own time.The restraint he
exercised in making emendations is indeed creditable.Many of Johnson’s pronouncements on
Shakespeare reflect neo-classical beliefs, with which many today do not agree, especially the insistence
on moral rectitude. Johnson has also come under criticism for preferring Shakespeare’s comedies to his
tragedies.However, his achievements outdo his shortcomings and the greatest proof of his greatness is
that his age is often called The Age of Johnson.
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JOSEPH ADDISON
Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician.
He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside
that of his long-standing friend, Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine.

Works:

1. To Mr.Dryden (1693)
2. A song for St.Cecilia Day at Oxford (1694)
 3. An account of the Greatest English poets (1694)
4. To Sir Godfrey Kneller, on his picture of the King ( 1716)
5. A poem to His Majesty, presented to the Lord Keeper (1695)
6. An Essay on Virgil,Georgics ( 1697)
7. A Letter from Italy, 1703 ( 1704)
8. The Campaign, A poem, To his Grace the Duke of Marlborough ( 1705)
9. Rosamond:An opera ( 1707)
10. The Present state of the War and the Necessity of an Augmention Considered ( 1708)
11. Cato :A Tragedy ( 1713)
12. The Whig-Examiner ( 1710)
13. The Free-Holder, or Political Essays ( 1715-1716)
14. Epilogue spoken at the Censorium on the king’ birthday (1716)
15. Dialogues upon the usefulness of Ancient Medals ( 1721)
16. The Evidences of the Christian Religion ( 1721)

Pleasures of Imaginations

Addison’s essay “Pleasures of Imagination” appeared in the periodical Spectator Number 416 on 2 nd july,
1712. Addison distinguishes pleasures of the imagination into two classes :

1. Primary pleasures, which derive from images or objects currently present to sight
2. Secondary pleasures, which derive from images or objects currently absent from sight and so
called up before the mind in some other way.

He further divided primary pleasures into three classes.

- Those proceeding from the sight of what is great ( or sublime)

- Those proceedings from the sight of what is novel
- Those proceeding from the sight of what is beautiful

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