Dr.

Samuel Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare: Points to Remember

Eighteenth-century writer Samuel Johnson ((1709-1784) is one of the most
significant figures in English literature. His fame is due in part to a widely read
biography of him, written by his friend James Boswell and published in 1791.
Although probably best known for compiling his celebrated dictionary, Johnson
was an extremely prolific writer who worked in a variety of fields and forms.
Chief Critical Approaches of Dr. Johnson are:
Johnson tried teaching and later organized a school in Lichfield. His educational
ventures were not successful, however, although one of his students, David
Garrick, later famous as an actor, became a lifelong friend.

Johnson, having given up teaching, went to London to try the literary life. Thus
began a long period of hack writing for the Gentleman's Magazine.

He founded his own periodical, The Rambler, in which he published, between

1750 and 1752, a considerable number of eloquent, insightful essays on literature,
criticism, and moral

Beginning in 1747, while busy with other kinds of writing and always burdened
with poverty, Johnson was also at work on a major project—compiling a dictionary
commissioned by a group of booksellers. After more than eight years in
preparation, the Dictionary of the English Language appeared in 1755. This
remarkable work contains about 40,000 entries elucidated by vivid, idiosyncratic,
still-quoted definitions and by an extraordinary range of illustrative examples.

Johnson published another periodical, The Idler, between 1758 and 1760.
In 1764 he and the eminent English portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds founded the
Literary Club; its membership included such luminaries as Garrick, the statesman
Edmund Burke, the playwrights Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
and a young Scottish lawyer, James Boswell.
Johnson's last major work, The Lives of the English Poets, was begun in 1778,
when he was nearly 70 years old, and completed—in ten volumes—in 1781. The
work is a distinctive blend of biography and literary criticism.

Johnson's points to remember in Preface to Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s characters are a just representation of human nature as they deal

with passions and principles which are common to humanity. They are also true to
the age, sex, profession to which they belong and hence the speech of one cannot
be put in the mouth of another. His characters are not exaggerated. Even when the
agency is supernatural, the dialogue is level with life.

Shakespeare’s plays are a storehouse of practical wisdom and from them can be
formulated a philosophy of life. Moreover, his plays represent the different
passions and not love alone. In this, his plays mirror life.

Shakespeare’s use of tragic comedy: Shakespeare has been much criticized for
mixing tragedy and comedy, but Johnson defends him in this. Johnson says that in
mixing tragedy and comedy, Shakespeare has been true to nature, because even in
real life there is a mingling of good and evil, joy and sorrow, tears and smiles etc.
this may be against the classical rules, but there is always an appeal open from
criticism to nature. Moreover, tragic-comedy being nearer to life combines within
itself the pleasure and instruction of both tragedy and comedy.

Shakespeare’s use of tragicomedy does not weaken the effect of a tragedy because
it does not interrupt the progress of passions. In fact, Shakespeare knew that
pleasure consisted in variety. Continued melancholy or grief is often not pleasing.
Shakespeare had the power to move, whether to tears or laughter.
Shakespeare’s comic genius: Johnson says that comedy came natural to
Shakespeare. He seems to produce his comic scenes without much labour, and
these scenes are durable and hence their popularity has not suffered with the
passing of time. The language of his comic scenes is the language of real life
which is neither gross nor over refined, and hence it has not grown obsolete.

Shakespeare writes tragedies with great appearance of toil and study, but there is
always something wanting in his tragic scenes. His tragedy seems to be skill, his
comedy instinct.

Johnson’s defence of Shakespeare’s use of unities:

Samuel Johnson ((1709-1784)

Shakespeare’s histories are neither tragedy nor comedy and hence he is not
required to follow classical rules of unities. The only unity he needs to maintain in
his histories is the consistency and naturalness in his characters and this he does so
faithfully. In his other works, he has well maintained the unity of action. His plots
have the variety and complexity of nature, but have a beginning, middle and an
end, and one event is logically connected with another, and the plot makes gradual
advancement towards the denouement.

Shakespeare shows no regard for the unities of Time and place, and according to
Johnson, these have troubled the poet more than it has pleased his audience. The
observance of these unities is considered necessary to provide credibility to the
drama. But, any fiction can never be real, and the audience knows this. If a
spectator can imagine the stage to be Alexandria and the actors to be Antony and
Cleopatra, he can surely imagine much more. Drama is a delusion, and delusion
has no limits. Therefore, there is no absurdity in showing different actions in
different places.
As regards the unity of Time, Shakespeare says that a drama imitates successive
actions, and just as they may be represented at successive places, so also they may
be represented at different period, separated by several days. The only condition is
that the events must be connected with each other.

Johnson further says that drama moves us not because we think it is real, but
because it makes us feel that the evils represented may happen to ourselves.
Imitations produce pleasure or pain, not because they are mistaken for reality, but
because they bring realities to mind. Therefore, unity of Action alone is sufficient,
and the other two unities arise from false assumptions. Hence it is good that
Shakespeare violates them.

Faults of Shakespeare: Shakespeare writes without moral purpose and is more

careful to please than to instruct. There is no poetic justice in his plays. This fault
cannot be excused by the barbarity of his age for justice is a virtue independent of
time and place.

Next, his plots are loosely formed, and only a little attention would have improved
them. He neglects opportunities of instruction that his plots offer, in fact, he very
often neglects the later parts of his plays and so his catastrophes often seem forced
and improbable.

There are many faults of chronology and many anachronisms in his play.

His jokes are often gross and licentious. In his narration, there is much pomp of
diction and circumlocution. Narration in his dramas is often tedious. His set
speeches are cold and weak. They are often verbose and too large for thought.
Trivial ideas are clothed in sonorous epithets. He is too fond of puns and quibbles
which engulf him in mire. For a pun, he sacrifices reason, propriety and truth. He
often fails at moments of great excellence. Some contemptible conceit spoils the
effect of his pathetic and tragic scenes.
Merits of Shakespeare: He perfected the blank verse, imparted to it diversity and
flexibility and brought it nearer to the language of prose.

Ref: Rogers, Pat. Johnson. Past Masters series

Oxford University Press.
Samuel Johnson in his “Preface to Shakespeare” highlights several qualities and
defects in Shakespeare’s plays whether they are comedies or tragedies. Samuel
Johnson’s preface got enough fame due to the points that he raised in his writing.
However, while highlighting the defects and qualities of Shakespeare’s work,
Johnson, sometimes contradicts his own views.
Samuel Johnson, a well-known figure of late Augustan age is considered superb
for his critical preface, Preface to Shakespeare by most critics. Harold Bloom
defines “Johnson’s vitality as a critic” as “always sufficiently inside Shakespeare’s
plays to judge them as he judges human life, without ever forgetting that
Shakespeare’s function is to bring life to mind”. In his preface, Johnson identifies
several strengths and imperfections in Shakespeare’s capabilities of writing.
Shakespeare develops his argument in considering Shakespeare and his works as
antique. He used the word “antique” as referential. He argues that something
written a long time ago, must have been discussed a lot and if it is still admired, it
contains some established qualities because it has gone through a phase of testing,
checking and comparing.

Strengths of Shakespeare’s Plays According to Johnson

Shakespeare was an established authority by the time of Johnson. According to
Johnson, “Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of
general nature”. By nature, Johnson means the observation of reality. Johnson says
that Shakespeare had the ability to provide a ‘just representation of general nature’.
Here, Johnson presents the idea of universality. David Daiches reports that Dr.
Johnson appreciates Shakespeare because he, according to Dryden’s requirement
of a just and lively image of human nature, fulfills it. He further explains that
Shakespeare as a dramatist is praised because he does what is expected from a
dramatist. Shakespeare’s writings have a main theme of good and evil, these are
universal problems, and everyone agrees to these problems. All humanity faces
good as well as evil so the author who uses these problems relates to people’s
lives.
According to Johnson, art should be exact representation (imitation) of general
nature as Plato says that art is the imitation of nature. Also, dealing with the theme
of universality, Johnson seems to believe in modern thoughts that truth has to be
universal, accepted by all and common for all. Nature is represented by classicists
so copying them also means copying nature. Hamlet says, “Hold up a mirror to
nature”, which means imitation of nature according to Platonic theory.
Shakespeare is also categorized by Johnson as poet of nature.
Johnson, further describes about Shakespeare’s characters as, “His persons act and
speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds
are agitated..”. Shakespeare’s characters are individuals but represent universality.
Johnson elaborates about Shakespeare’s characters, “Shakespeare has no heroes;
his scenes are occupied by men”. It means that Shakespeare’s characters are of
general kind and are not restricted by customs and conventions of any one society.
David Daiches describes that by having no heroes does not mean that his
characters are not heroic or impressive but that they are not supernatural beings but
“men, whom we recognize as fellow human beings” acting according to the
general laws of nature. Also, if Shakespeare uses ghosts, he gives them humanly
characteristics as they speak like human beings such as Hamlet’s father’s ghost.
Johnson describes language of Shakespeare as comprehensible. He also describes
that Shakespeare’s characters differ from one another because of the usage of
language.
Johnson praises Shakespeare and comments, “His drama is the mirror of life”.
According to Johnson, his plays are so realistic that we get practical knowledge
from them. He further says, “Shakespeare’s plays are not in the rigorous and
critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind..”.
According to Johnson, divisions of Shakespeare’s plays into tragedies and
comedies is wrong. Eliot shares Johnson’s idea of incorrect labeling of
Shakespeare’s dramas as tragic, comic and historic.
Johnson judges Shakespeare’s tragedy as “a skill” and his comedy as an ‘instinct’.
He thinks that the natural medium for Shakespeare is comedy not tragedy.
According to him, Shakespeare had to struggle for his tragedies but still they did
not reach perfection.
He presents a mingled drama – a tragicomedy, which provides instructions in both
the ways, as a tragedy as well as a comedy. He reinforces if tragedy and comedy
are mingled, the effect one wants to create on the audience is impaired. Mingling
of tragedy and comedy means to represent the reality of the world as it is.

Weaknesses in Shakespeare’s Plays According to Johnson

Johnson identifies, “The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct
by pleasing”. Dr. Johnson, like utilitarian, seems to believe in the usefulness of art.
He is one of them who want to prove that art is profitable for society. He also
agrees to Sidney’s idea of poet as a moral teacher. According to Johnson, poetry
should make us better and it should be didactic. David Daiches criticizes Johnson
for his two contradictory remarks—just representation of human nature and poetry
as a medium of moral instruction. David Daiches emphasizes that human nature
not only deals with good side of life but also the evil aspects are there. However,
for instructing morally, evil should be omitted, which means that the writer is not
depicting true human nature. Humanity contains moral as well as immoral aspects
so poetry cannot be a moral teacher and true human nature representation both.
Johnson comments on Shakespeare’s style, “He sacrifices virtue to convenience..”.
Johnson’s argument is prejudice of the age. According to his opinion, rational
thinking leads to moral thinking. Anthony House depicts, “Johnson exhibits
emphatic distaste for Shakespeare’s lack of moral purpose”. Johnson reinforces on
a writer’s duty “to make the world better”, which means, he emphasizes on moral
role of literature, which is again contradictory to neo-classical ideas.
Another defect highlighted by Johnson is that Shakespeare does not give much
consideration to plot construction. Initially, in the preface, Johnson praises
Shakespeare for his universality, his not belonging to any one age, place or time
but then, he contradicts with himself as he identifies it a flaw of Shakespeare’s
style.
For Johnson, clarity and diction are important. Johnson criticizes Shakespeare’s
use of language. According to him, Shakespeare is not of civilized kind and is also
over-punning. Sometimes, it seems that Shakespeare is involved in providing mere
dialogues not related to the plot.
Johnson vigorously defends Shakespeare against charges of failing to adhere to the
classical doctrine of the dramatic unities of time, place and action. According to
Aristotle, these unities are necessary for the praiseworthy work. As far as, unity of
action is concerned, Shakespeare is good at it but the other two unities of time and
place are subservient to the mind: since the audience does not confound stage
action with reality, it has no trouble with a shift of scene from Rome to Alexandria.
Anthony House claims, “By reversing the entire paradigm through which the
unities are used, Johnson changes Shakespeare’s fault into a praiseworthy asset”.
According to Johnson, the idea of unity of place and time is contradictory in terms
of reason and rationality. Johnson also elaborates, “Such violations of rules mere
positive become the comprehensive genius of Shakespeare”.
Anthony House depicts the importance of Johnson’s work in terms of
Shakespeare’s study. By his preface, Johnson tries to highlight certain views about
Shakespeare’s genius. Whatever Johnson has contributed, it is precious.
Discuss Dr. Samuel Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare
Notes / Words: 2,925 / March 3, 2020
Alternate question: Comment on Samuel Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare.
Shakespeare endures. Though four hundred-odd years and countless playwrights
have come and gone, the works William Shakespeare continue to enthrall us.
Every student studies him. Some love him; many hate him. Still, all know him.
Outside the classroom, too, Shakespeare continues to shape the culture of the
western world. His plays grace the stage each season, with such diverse company
as Sophocles and Jeff Goode. They are produced in every imaginable context.
Critics continue to analyze their facets. Indeed, critics dedicate tomes to critiquing
their peers’ observations of his works.
Each year, a new crop of his plays are, with a few intermittent exceptions,
butchered by Hollywood. Surprisingly enough, however, those films continue to
draw crowds. Surely, Shakespeare’s endurance attests to his literary merit. Even in
the eighteenth century, the Bard’s votaries defended his worth by citing the
longevity of his appeal. Dr. Samuel Johnson, however, warned against such short-
sighted estimations of greatness by reminding his contemporaries that all too often
“praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and…the honours do only to
excellence are paid to antiquity” (Johnson 8).

Still, Johnson proclaims Shakespeare’s merits. With his publication The Plays of
William Shakespeare in 1765, Johnson made his contribution to the history of
Shakespearean criticism. As with much of his work, Johnson left his own indelible
mark on the field. His edition remains relevant today because it continues to affect
the way critics approach Shakespeare. Johnson was not the first editor of
Shakespeare; nor was he by any means the last. Though he defended the
methodology of his edition itself quite well, its legacy in modern literature is, on
the whole, indirect.

The critical material that accompanies his edition continues to have a much more
direct effect on Shakespeare as he is interpreted today. To use Johnson’s own
criterion, his Preface and annotation can be called great because “frequent
comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favor” (. An understanding of the
criticism itself is, of course, necessary to any understanding of its endurance. The
notes with which Johnson sprinkled his edition, though indisputably important, are
too diverse to be treated with any justice here. Johnson’s more comprehensive
Preface has retained its influence to the present day.
There are four easily distinguished sections in Johnson’s Preface; in the first, he
explicates Shakespeare’s virtues after explaining what merit, if any, can be
determined by the Shakespeare’s enduring popularity. Johnson walks the middle
ground with his critique of antiquity. He neither fully embraces longevity as a
litmus test of quality nor rejects it as meaningless. Rather, he points out that those
works which have withstood the test of time stand out not because of their age
alone, but because, with age, those works have “been compared with other works
of the same kind” and can therefore be “stiled excellen”.

He proceeds thence to elevate Shakespeare as the poet of nature. “Nothing can

please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature” . It is
Shakespeare’s realism, Johnson argues, that distinguishes him from other
playwrights. In his characterization and dialogue, Shakespeare “overlooks the
casual distinction of country and condition,” striking at the center of humanity
(14). The nature captured by Shakespeare’s characters is exhibited in the “ease and
simplicity” of their dialogues (12).

Indeed, Johnson points out, the distinctions of character stressed by such critics as
Voltaire and Rhymer impose only artificial burdens on the natural genius of
Shakespeare. Johnson goes further in his defense of the Bard’s merit, extending his
argument from the characters within his plays to the genre of the plays themselves.
In the strictest, classical sense of the terms, Johnson admits, Shakespeare’s works
cannot be fairly called comedies or tragedies. For this too, his plays earned harsh
criticism from Johnson’s contemporaries.

Johnson, though, sees in the mixture of sorrow and joy a style which “approaches
nearer than either to the appearance of life” (15). By acknowledging the basis of
such criticism, Johnson frees himself to turn the argument on its head. He holds up
the tragicomedies of Shakespeare as distinctly natural; in their “interchange of
seriousness and merriment,” they hold up “a faithful mirrour of manners and of
life” (15, 10). This, of course, is paramount to literary success to Johnson.

His praise for Shakespeare, which centers on the Bard’s sublunary approach to
character, dialogue, and plot, does not blind him to the poet of nature’s
weaknesses. Johnson airs Shakespeare’s imperfections without hesitance. In doing
so, though, he does not weaken his arguments; he simply establishes his credentials
as a critic. As Edward Tomarken points out, “for Johnson, criticism requires, not
intrusive sententiae, but evaluative interpretations, decisions about how literature
applies to the human dilemma” (Tomarken 2). Johnson is not hesitant to admit
Shakespeare’s faults: his earlier praise serves to keep those flaws in perspective.
Even without that perspective, however, Johnson’s censure of Shakespeare is not
particularly harsh. For the most part, Johnson highlights surface-level defects in the
Bard’s works: his “loosely formed” plots, his “commonly gross” jests, and—most
ironically—his “disproportionate pomp of diction and a wearisome train of
circumlocution” (Johnson 19, 20). The most egregious fault Johnson finds in
Shakespeare, though, is thematic.

Unsurprisingly, Johnson exhibits emphatic distaste for Shakespeare’s lack of moral

purpose. Johnson argues that he “sacrifices virtue to convenience” (19). In leading
“his persons indifferently through right and wrong” and leaving “their examples to
operate by chance,” Shakespeare has abandoned his duty as an author as the
righteous Johnson would have that duty defined (19). This is, in his eyes,
Shakespeare’s greatest flaw, though it does not supersede his other merits. In the
third section of his Preface, Johnson ceases his attack on Shakespeare, and returns
to his defense.

Johnson begins by refuting the reproach wrought by adherents to the unities, which
had “elicited from French criticism a tiresome unanimity” (Stock 76). Though they
have lost their prominence, Shakespeare’s deviation from the unities of action,
time, and place earned him substantial censure. Johnson defends Shakespeare’s
employment of unity of action, though he admits that Shakespeare deviates slightly
in to allow his plots to concur with nature. He goes further, though, and summarily
dismisses the value of the unities, whose importance, he contends, “arises from the
supposed necessity of making the drama credible” (Johnson 23).

Such credibility is impossible, however, since the very nature of drama is beyond
the reach of reason. “Spectators,” Johnson points out, “are always in their senses,
and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the
players are only players” (24). The imagination of the audience, stretched by the
play itself, is not incapable of further activity. By reversing the entire paradigm
through which the unities are used, Johnson changes Shakespeare’s fault into a
praiseworthy asset. Johnson also praises Shakespeare within his context.

Given the Bard’s unimpressive educational background, the quality of his work is
astounding. Education alone, however, could not produce Shakespeare’s works,
which have “a vigilance of distinction which books and precepts cannot offer”
(35). It is that observation which makes him the poet of nature, and frees his works
from many forms of criticism. Johnson extends his consideration of context to the
national level. At a time in which the English had no model of literary excellence,
Shakespeare produced just such a model. In his context, then, Johnson purports
that Shakespeare’s achievement is phenomenal.

Johnson’s defends Shakespeare as having fulfilled the “first purpose of a writer, by

exciting restless and unquenchable curiosity, and compelling him that reads his
work to read it through” (Johnson 30). His advocacy of Shakespeare in the first
section, coupled with his rigorous defense in the third, all but insist that
Shakespeare’s merits heavily outweigh his faults. In the final quarter of the
Preface, Johnson reviews the work of previous editors of Shakespeare, and after
critiquing his predecessors, Johnson explains his own editorial methodology.

Clearly, Johnson felt that no extant edition could be considered authoritative, for
he undertook to create his own. He opens by lamenting Shakespeare’s complete
disregard for the preservation of his plays. Had the Bard released an authorized
edition of his works during his lifetime, Johnson points out, the “negligence and
unskilfulness” of eighteenth century editors would not have “corrupted many
passages perhaps beyond recovery” (Johnson 39, 40). Still, Johnson proves willing
add praise to his condemnation as he comments on the particular approaches of
Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton.

Rowe, whose edition appeared in 1709, focused little on “correction or

explanation,” but whose emendations were used by successive editors (40).
Johnson acknowledges that his approach to Shakespeare was suitable for his
context. Johnson grants more praise to Pope, who he says illustrated to readers the
“true state of Shakespeare’s text” (41). In doing so, Pope edited the plays heavily,
even distinguishing between the legitimate and the forgeries. For Pope Johnson
retained an editor’s notes in full, an indication of the high regard in which Johnson
held him.

Not all of Johnson’s predecessors faired as well as Pope, though. Johnson is—not
altogether surprisingly—harsh with Theobald, who attacked Pope’s edition.
Johnson characterizes him as “a man of narrow comprehension…with no native
and intrinsick splendour of genius” (Johnson 42-43). Still, Johnson acknowledges
that “what little he did do was commonly right” (43). Of his notes, Johnson retains
those from his second edition which were not corrected by successive editors.
Johnson rigorously defends his fourth predecessor, Hanmer, whose attempts to add
form to Shakespeare’s meter had been attacked.
Johnson, however, stresses Hanmer’s great care in annotation, and reaffirms his
merit as an editor. Warburton, the most recent of the Bard’s editors, earns more
sever censure from Johnson’s pen. Johnson criticizes, first and foremost,
Warburton’s overconfidence, “which presumes to do, by surveying the surface,
what labour only can perform, by penetrating the bottom” (45). Johnson also
attacks him for his weak notes and his insight into the plays inconsistent. As to his
own edition, Johnson acknowledges his debt to his five predecessors, saying “not
one left Shakespeare without improvement” (49).

He also points out that he tended to look before even Rowe’s edition in an effort to
find the most authoritative text possible. In an effort to maintain plays’ integrity,
Johnson confines his “imagination to the margin,” commenting on the text with as
little modification as possible. Still, with a plethora of available sources, Johnson’s
work as an editor was still significant. In the end, he released the most
comprehensive edition of Shakespeare’s works of the eighteenth century.
Johnson’s edition of Shakespeare was greeted with mix of adulation and criticism.

Even from the beginning, however, the Preface “monopolized critical attention”
(Sherbo 46). The misconception that the Preface itself constitutes Johnson’s edition
persists even today. Between Johnson’s time and our own the Preface has been
both exalted and condemned. Many of his contemporaries showered Johnson’s
edition with great praise, singling out the Preface as “a fine piece of writing”
containing “much truth, good sense, and just criticism” (Colman qtd. in Sherbo
47). Johnson’s “comprehensive views and comprehensive expression…made the
essay a classic” (Elledge 1136).

Other critics subjected the Preface to further scrutiny, looking beyond the surface
criticism at Johnson’s methods of approaching Shakespeare. Thus William
Kenrick, for example, focused extensively on Johnson’s “treatment of the unities
and the whole question of dramatic illusion” (Sherbo 48). Kenrick’s review was
not altogether positive, however. In fact, he bitterly censures Johnson, accusing
him of “having acted, in the outrage he hath committed on Shakespeare, just like
other sinners, not only by doing those things he ought not to have done, but by
leaving undone those things he ought to have done” (Kenrick xv).

In The Life of Samuel Johnson, Boswell singles out the Preface, hailing it as a
work “in which the excellencies and defects of that immortal bard are displayed
with a masterly hand” (130-131). His dismissal of the rest of the work, however,
betrays some hint of disappointment in the edition as a whole. Certainly, even in
Johnson’s lifetime, there were vocal critics besides Kenrick. John Hawkins
dismissed it as unimpressive: “Much had been expected from it, and little now
appeared to have been performed” (qtd. in Sherbo 48). Still, Hawkins
acknowledges that Johnson’s edition of Shakespeare formed the basis of
subsequent editions.

Critics of the nineteenth century were generally harsh as well. Charles Knight, for
example, granted in 1867 that Johnson’s work had “influenced the public opinion
up to this day;” he immediately adds, though, that “the influence has been for the
most part evil” (qtd. in Sherbo 49). By the end of the nineteenth century, the
critical thought on the Preface tended toward the unimpressed. Johnson has
regained some stature in the past hundred years, however. Slowly, critics began to
see in his Preface a “conclusive summing up by a strong, wise, and impartial
mind” (Smith qtd. in Sherbo 49).

Other critics found value in more specific aspects of Johnson’s work. T. S. Eliot
praised his lucidity in identifying Shakespeare’s genre: “The distinction between
the tragic and the comic is an account of the way in which we try to live; when we
get below it, as in King Lear, we have an account of the way in which we do live”
(Eliot 296). Eliot shared Johnson’s distaste for the superficial distinctions through
which Shakespeare’s plays had been labeled tragic, comic, and historic. Rather, he
saw that, in the interchange tragic and comic scenes, Shakespeare produces
literature that is true to life.

Indeed, Charles Warren points out that “Eliot in his susceptibilities sounds a little
like Dr. Johnson,” whom he praised in various ways (6). Arthur Sherbo, editor
of Johnson on Shakespeare, saw that, despite its weaknesses, the Preface is still
worthy of study: Where Johnson deviated from the traditional criticism of various
aspects of Shakespeare’s art he was often wrong…But this does not detract from
the merited fame of the Preface as a magnificent restatement of the eighteenth
century’s thinking on Shakespeare. Sherbo 60) Such a view of Johnson is best
described as qualified praise; he acknowledges its weaknesses without ignoring its
strengths. Donald Green echoes Sherbo’s praises, stressing that Johnson gave the
eighteenth century’s critics “their first really effective and memorable expression”
(Greene, Samuel Johnson 185). More recently, also, Johnson has earned the
recognition of modern critics. In his analysis of Shakespeare’s depictions of reality,
for example, A. D. Nuttall commends Johnson’s approach to the Bard as poet of
nature. Johnson, he says, “finds in Shakespeare’s adherence to nature a profound
and ordered uniformity” (67).
Indeed, in many ways, the importance that Nuttall prescribes to realism is similar
to that of Johnson. In his conclusion, he points out their mutual dislike for “the
pastoral convention,” in favor of forms less “insulated from this varying world”
(185, 193). Nuttall embraces Shakespeare’s version of reality, which he sees as an
unconscious challenge to transcendentalism. Edward Tomarken, too, defends the
Preface. Never denying that it is a “largely derivative work,” Tomarken argues that
it directly links the criticism of the eighteenth century to that of today (3).

He points out that it “speaks directly to us, raising new questions and presenting
new resolutions for modern Shakespereans, theoreticians, and literary critics in
general” (3). Today’s critics have generally looked beyond the origins of the work
to its original methodological contributions, where they have found much value.
More than any other modern critic, however, Harold Bloom has fully embraced
Johnson’s approach to Shakespeare. Arguably today’s preeminent scholar of
Shakespeare, Bloom singles out Johnson as “the foremost of interpreters” and
“first among all Western literary critics” (Bloom 2).

Such praise for Johnson, particularly in reference to his edition of Shakespeare, is

almost unprecedented. He sees Johnson’s contribution to both literary criticism
generally and Shakespearean criticism specifically as indispensable. He defines
“Johnson’s vitality as a critic” by noting that he is “always
sufficiently inside Shakespeare’s plays to judge them as he judges human life,
without ever forgetting that Shakespeare’s function is to bring life to mind” (2).
Bloom’s tribute to Johnsonian criticism is not mere lip service, however; he
integrates Johnson’s principles into his own pproach to Shakespeare’s works.
Bloom echoes Johnson’s focus on creativity, stressed not only in the Preface to
Shakespeare, but also in the Lives of the Poets, where Johnson points out that
Milton’s work “is not the greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first”
(Johnson qtd. in Greene, Critical Edition 716). For Bloom, Shakespeare’s
ingenuity is of prime importance, and his invention was not only literary, but
linguistic: “Early modern English was shaped by Shakespeare: the Oxford English
Dictionary is made in his image” (Bloom 10).

Bloom also incorporates Johnson’s notion of Shakespeare as the poet of nature into
his own work, calling Hamlet “art’s tribute to nature” (4). Bloom’s focus in
examining Shakespeare is, in fact, his “originality in the representation of
character” (17). On the whole, Bloom is simultaneously a distinctly modern and
distinctly Johnsonian critic. Johnson was among the first of the Bard’s editors. His
Preface, however, betrays his reliance on his few predecessors. Nevertheless, his
edition has affected the study of Shakespeare since its publication in 1765.

Whether praised or censured, critics have garnished Johnson’s edition—its Preface,

in particular—with much attention. Johnson did not begin the study of
Shakespeare, nor did he set an unchallenged precedent in the field. Still, Johnson’s
approach to the poet of nature has survived until the present. Certainly, Johnson’s
Preface does not enjoy the same popular appeal as Shakespeare’s works. As long
as scholars continue to examine Shakespeare, however, Johnson’s work will
remain important. Truly, Shakespeare endures. So does Johnson.

Related Articles:

 Critical Analysis of Shakespeare’s "Hamlet"

 Shakespeare's Characterization of Hamlet
 Dr. Samuel Johnson's Evaluation of Shakespeare's art of Characterization in
his 'Preface to Shakespeare'
On Literary Criticism in Samuel Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare
SEPTIEMBRE 27, 2013 MARINIERCA DEJA UN COMENTARIO
Through the “Preface to Shakespeare,” Samuel Johnson points out different
important matters to consider while evaluating a literary work. Particularly one of
the reasons of this preface is to display scaffold by scaffold what Shakespeare has
done in order to begin to “assume the dignity of an ancient.” Johnson justifies with
a variety of arguments why Shakespeare’s work deserves to be considered a piece
of art. In order to attain that, Johnson discloses what, as he considers, literary
criticisms must do.

There are plenty of “big epigrams” concerning literary criticism all through the
pref-ace. As a man of letters and considered an authority most of them are not
followed by a quote or an argument more than what his experience in the field can
provide. In this essay some of them will be shown so that Johnson’s meaning of it
can be determined and bound as far as this can be done.

Already after his preface’s opening the following lines are read: “The great
contention of criticism is to find the faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the
ancients. Immediately followed by these words: “While an author is yet living we
estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them
by his best.” Clearly the second sentence confers an ironic sense to the first one.
Which means that it is not that the former line establishes what the ideal contend is
but the real one. Johnson calls his audience to refine and make their literary
analysis deeper, which in this case means not to praise an author because of its
antiquity and perhaps to be sensible to new forms of art. So already in the second
paragraph of the preface Johnson has told us what is NOT supposed to be done by
a critic. The acute reader will immediately ask, not what is it supposedly to be done
then, but, in order to establish precepts to do a deep and useful analysis, what kind
of work is it going to be on the table.
Johnson, who is a step ahead, begins his next paragraph establishing the game’s
rules “ to works not raised upon principles demonstrative and scientifick, but
appealing wholly to observation and experience.”[1, p. 3] Concisely, he classifies
“works” into those that have demonstrative and scientific principles and those rise
by observation and experience. Once this is known he strongly determines the way
to evaluate them ‘no other test can be applied than length of duration and
continuance of esteem” and “frequent comparisons.” So, since art is not objective
apparently for him the most adequate factor to consider is comparison. To
enlighten this point, the author gives his reader an example of an antique whose
work has become part of humankind’s knowledge. Johnson presents Homer as an
author who has gone through nation-to-nation, century-by-century and that is what
makes him grand. But, as if Johnson was reading our minds, he kindly tells the
reader why is it that comparison is the most important tool for literary criticism.

Frequent comparisons from different scholars through time lead to better

understanding and deepening of what it is studied and when a literary work is
better understood, prob- ably if it is worth it, it will be more appreciated, since the
secret of its structured is more revealed. Johnson is completely sure about this
when he expresses with the following words ‘ ‘what has been longest known has
been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood”.[1, p. 3]

According to Johnson, another fundamental factor to value literature is whether it

conveys pleasure or not. Something is “praised only as pleasure is obtained” [1, p.
4] These words raise some questions about pleasure. How does a work of literature
convey pleasure? Why do some of them convey more pleasure than others? And
this is where Johnsons, while talking about Shakespeare’s work value proposes
some characteristics that maybe are not only in Shakespeare but in other creations
that make them valuable. Therefore these characteristics could be used as
parameters to do literary criticism as well.

General nature, progeny of common humanity and passions are some of the
characteristics that the work of Shakespeare presents. As Johnson establishes these
are some of the main topics that he develops magnificently and that make his work
worth of belonging to posterity. In this terms it is natural that literary criticism
generally deals with those subjects. That is why a good piece of art develops
probably one or some of them in an original and sophisticated way.

From Johnson’s preface another important variable, which could be interpreted that
which should be considered by a critic could be is credibility. ‘The necessity of
observing the unities of time and place arises from the supposed necessity of
making the drama credible.” [1, p. 14] ‘The mind revolts from evident falsehood,
and fiction loses its force when it departs from the resemblance of reality.” With
these word Johnson locates credibility as a basic factor for literature in order to be
good.

Finally it could be concluded that to Johnson literary criticism , which has the aim
of evaluating works appealing wholly to observation and experience, should
consider: com- parison, understanding, topics like passions or common humanity,
credibility among others in order to know how praise literature. I would say that
for him the most important factor is to understand the considered work by different
means, comparison, credibility or general topics. Definitely, “Preface to
Shakespeare”, intentionaly done by Johnson in order to justify what he establishes
about Shakespeare, is a revelation of what literary criticism means to him.