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DR. JOHNSON AS A CRITIC [PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE]:

Hareshwar Roy Sunday, November 19, 2017

Dr. Hareshwar Roy

INTRODUCTION: Dr. Johnson is one of the greatest critics. As a literary critic he was an exponent of classicism. He

condemned everything that did not conform to classical doctrines. He is almost always penetrating and stimulating.

His 'Preface to Shakespeare' is considered as one of the noblest monuments of English neo-classical criticism. His

judgment of Shakespeare marks the date in the history of criticism.

FIDELITY TO FACTS OF NATURE: 'The Preface to Shakespeare' deals with Johnson's judgment of Shakespeare as

a dramatist. According to Johnson, the basic requirement of literary greatness is fidelity to facts of nature. This is

clearly the neo-classical theory of art as imitation. Johnson praises Shakespeare for meeting this requirement fully

and most satisfactorily. According to him, Shakespeare is, par excellence, the poet of nature. He holds up to his

readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life. His characters have a universal appeal. They act and speak like

human beings. They are commonly a species.

SHAKESPEARE'S REALISM: Johnson has praised Shakespeare's realism. He says that his depiction of the truth of

human nature and human psychology is praiseworthy. He portrayed human characters in a realistic manner. His

plays are full of practical axioms and domestic wisdom. He does not depict love as the major human motive and

emotion. He knew that love is only one of many passions. It has no great influence upon the totality of life. Thus it has

little operation in the drama of Shakespeare. Johnson discusses the realistic quality of Shakespeare's dialogues too.

MINGLING OF TRAGIC AND COMIC ELEMENT: ‘In Preface to Shakespeare’ Dr. Johnson defends Shakespeare for

his mingling of the tragic and comic elements in his plays on the grounds of realism and historical background.

According to him such mingling only serves to show us the world in which the loss of one man is the gain of another.

In other words, Shakespeare was equally at home in writing tragic and comic plays. He could combine comic and
tragic elements in one and the same play. Almost all his plays are divided between serious and ludicrous characters

and they sometimes produce sorrow and sometimes laughter.

THREE UNITIES: Shakespeare has been charged for his neglect of the unities of time and place. But Johnson

defends him in this matter. According to him this neglect is not really a fault. He argues that if an audience in a

theatre can accept the stage as a locality in the city of Rome, they will also accept the change from Rome to

Alexandria. The unity of time may likewise be violated on the same principle. He concludes this discussion by saying

that the unities of time and place are not essential to a good play.

FAULTS OF SHAKESPEARE: In his "Preface" Johnson defends Shakespeare in many matters, but he does not

consider him to be a faultless dramatist. According to him, Shakespeare tries more to please his audience than to

instruct them. It seems that he writes without any moral purpose. His plots are often very loosely formed and

carelessly pursued. His comic scenes are seldom very successful. In such scenes the jests are generally indecent.

Johnson does not take a favourable view of Shakespeare's tragic plays. He accuses him of employing a

disproportionate pomp of diction. He condemns Shakespeare for inappropriate use of idle conceit and his over-

fondness for quibbles.

CONCLUSION: Thus, Johnson is a great critic. His "Preface" is called as a balanced estimate. Here Johnson shows

his penetrating power that probes to the very core of Shakespeare's art. It reveals its deep humanity and its

sovereign realism. His praise of Shakespeare as the dramatist of realism par excellence is wholly justified and

convincing.

Concept/ Criticism
Reactions:  Location: Satna, M.P., India Satna, Madhya Pradesh, India
Hareshwar Roy
Dr. Roy obtained his master degree in English from P.U.Patna, Bihar & Ph.D. from A.P.S. University Rewa, M. P. Currently he
is working as Professor of English at Govt.P.G. College Satna, M. P. He is the author of the following books: (1) Diasporic
Articulation in the Novels of M.G. Vassanji (2) A Study of M.G. Vassanji 's Novels (3) Varieties of Indianity in the Works of
M.G. Vassanji & Rohinton Mistry (4)Diaspora & Indian Diaspora: A Brief Study (5) Short Notes of English Literature - I (6)
Short Notes of English Literature - II (7) हमार पहचान ह भोजपु री - भोजपु री कविता सं कलन (8) हमरा प्यार हो गइल - भोजपु री गज़ल
सं कलन (9) भोजपु री कविताएँ

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Hareshwar Roy

HARESHWAR ROY
Satna, Madhya Pradesh, India
Dr. Roy obtained his master degree in English from P.U.Patna, Bihar & Ph.D. from A.P.S. University Rewa, M. P.
Currently he is working as Professor of English at Govt.P.G. College Satna, M. P. He is the author of the following
books: (1) Diasporic Articulation in the Novels of M.G. Vassanji (2) A Study of M.G. Vassanji 's Novels (3)
Varieties of Indianity in the Works of M.G. Vassanji & Rohinton Mistry (4)Diaspora & Indian Diaspora: A Brief
Study (5) Short Notes of English Literature - I (6) Short Notes of English Literature - II (7) हमार पहचान ह भोजपुरी -
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Dr. Johnson as a Critic

Introduction:

‘Johnson’s critical writings are living literature as Dryden’s for instance, are not. Johnson’s criticism, most of it, belongs
with the living classics; it can be read afresh every year with unaffected pleasure and new stimulus. It is alive and life-giving”.

                                 –Dr. Leavis in Scrutiny, Vol. XII.

Dr. Johnson was the grand cham of the realm of letters of his day. A critic observes. There are four great dictatorial figures
in English literature, each of whom seems to have been recognised in his age as the supreme authority in the realm of letters. In the
time of James I there was Ben Jonson reigning at the Mermaid Tavern; after the Restoration came Dryden to give his views in the
coffee-house, then followed Pope and after him arose Dr. Johnson to utter his downright judgments in tavern and drawing-room
and book-shops4and at the Literary Club.” As is clear from BosweH’s inimitable biography ”Life of Johnson), Dr. Johnson was
particularly good at purposeful and witty conversation. Indeed the last thirty years of his life he spent talking and, by talking, and by
overwhelming his friends and foes alike: He gathered around himself a galaxy of the most important literary figures of the age. The
Club was organised in 1764 and from hen till his death in 1784 Dr. Johnson completely dominated it. Moody and Lovett maintain
that Johnson’s so-called dictatorship of English letters was largely the result of his conversational supremacy in the Literary Club
which included nearly all the famous writers of the time. Among these “famous writers” were Sir Joshua Reynold the famous
painter, Garrick the actor, Malone the Shakespearean scholar, Bishop Percy the collector of ballads, Adam Smith the political
economist, Gibbon the historian, Boswell, Fox, Burke the orator, and Oliver Goldsmith. “They met,” Boswell tells us, “at the Turk’s
Head in Gerrard street, Soho, one evening in every week at seven, and generally continued their conversation till a pretty late hour.”
Dr. Johnson was the soul of his learned assembly and acted visibly as the dictator thereof.

His Equipment as a Critic:

 As critic of literature Dr. Johnson was well equipped. About his classical reading there cannot be any doubt. He had an
amazingly retentive memory and could cite passage after passage from English and classical poetry without having to look at the
text. He had tremendous mental vigour as well as clarity of perception. His acuteness of observation was combined with a wonderful
candour of judgment and expression. Of all the English critics Johnson is the last to mince matters. He is very forthright, even
downright. He has some central points of view which he defends with all his bullish strength. Last but not least is his delightful style.

But he has many limitations too. He is a man of very strong likes and dislikes-the dislikes being much stronger than the
likes. He has pet prejudices which impair some of his criticism. Many have questioned his ear, and some have attacked his
dogmatism and his incapacity to appreciate what is, dubiously, called “pure poetry.”

“Preface to Shakespeare”:

The two important works of Jonson as a critic are:-

(i)                 Preface to Shakespeare; and

(ii)               (ii) Lives of the Poets.

Let us consider the first of the two and see what idea of Johnson as a critic it gives.

Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare appended to his edition of Shakespeare is, in the words of David Daiches, “one of the
noblest monuments of English neoclassic criticism…and an exposure of some of the weaknesses, contradictions, and unnecessary
rigidities of some widely accepted neoclassic principles…Its pungent style, emphatic clarity, and tendency to epigrammatic summing
up of each argument carried its ideas home with enormous force.” No modern editor of Shakespeare can ignore what Johnson has to
say about Shakespeare–his comments on characters, his quite illuminating notes on the meanings of words, and his general
assessment of Shakespeare as a poet and dramatist. The Preface represents effectively all the good and bad qualities of Johnson as a
critic. It is, according to a critic, “certaiftly the most masterly piece of literary criticism. All Johnson’s gifts are seen at their best in it:
the lucidity, the virile energy, the individuality of his style, the unique power of first placing himself on the level of the plain man and
then lifting the plain man to his, the resolute insistence on life and reason, not learning or ingenuity, as the standard by which books
are to be judged.”

Johnson neglects the merits of other Elizabethans and pays this glowing tribute to Shakespeare: “The stream of time
which is continually washing dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare. Poetic
reputations blaze up and dwindle and the fire which heartened one generation will be but cold ashes to the next. Yet for three
centuries Shakespeare’s fame has giowed so steadily that he has come to be looked on as the supreme expression not only of the
English race but of the whole world.” The basis of Johnson’s exaltation of Shakespeare is essentially neoclassic. He does not
passively accept the decision of generation after generation. According to him “nothing can please many, and please long, but just
representations of general nature”. This is the neoclassic expression of Aristotle’s conception of imitation. Shakespeare is great
because he is a poet not of freaks and whims but of general human nature which “is still the same.” Shakespeare’s “persons act and
speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is
continued in motion.” The emphasis on general truths rather than on the investigation of details is a basic tenet of the neoclassic
school. “To generalise is to be an idiot,” said Blake; but the neoclassicists did not count the streaks of a tulip.

Johnson is, however, not a strait-jacketed neoclassicist. He admits of an occasional departure even from his pet principles.
As he puts it, “there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature.” The imitation of general nature which he insists on should, in
his opinion, be subjected to moral and didactic considerations. “The end of writing,” Johnson says, “is to instruct: the end of poetry
is to instruct by pleasing.” And this is Shakespeare’s “fault” : “He sacrificed virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to
please than to instruct, that he seems to write without any moral purpose.” Thus, one of the reasons we praise Shakespeare for is
treated by Johnson as his “defect.” This also explains Johnson’s plea for poetic justice. He supports the happy ending of King
Lear as manoeuvred by Nahum Tate and others. He admits that a play in which the virtuous suffer and the wicked prosper “is a just
representation of the common events of human life.” But even then the playwright should preferably show “the final triumph of
persecuted virtue,” as that will please the audiences more.

Johnson does not show evidence of any real grasp of Shakespeare’s-poetic powers. He feels that Shakespeare was better at
comedy than tragedy. Nor is he aware of the psychological subtleties of his characterisation. His criticism of Shakespeare’s verbal
quibbling is also indicative of his deficiency of perception. Shakespeare’s puns, truly speaking, are not always senseless. When
Margaret in Richard III says :

And turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!

Witness my son, now in the shade of death,

she is not just playing on the words “sun,” “son”, and “shade.” She is in fact fulfilling a deeply compulsive psychological
necessity. Her wordplay is, in the words of Oliver Elton, “in the nature of a safety valve, with a grim kind of hiss in it, for the escape
of passion.”

“The Lives of the Poets”:

Johnson’s most mature and sustained critical work is The Lives of the Poets originally published as Prefaces,
Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets, between 1779 and 1781. It was intended to be a series of introductions
to the works of the English poets from Cowley and Milton down to Johnson’s contemporaries like Akenside and Gray. As many as
fifty-two poets are dealt with. It is characteristic of the work that it deals with only the poets of the neoclassical tradition. As David
Daiches says, “for the most part Johnson is dealing with men writing in a tradition he understood and employing the kind of verse
for which he had an extremely accurate ear.” Many of the poets dealt with are read by nobody nowadays- Thomas Yalden, Edmund
Smith, William King, James Hammond, and Gillbert West. Only six of the rest-Milton, Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Collins, and Gray—
are of real significance today.

In each of the LivesJohnson gives the biographical facts about the poet, his observations on his character, and then a
critical asessment of his poetry. Except in the case of the minor poets he makes little contribution to biographical facts. Anyway, his
style is attractive throughout. We may not accept The Lives of the Poets as a guide, but, certainly, it is a good companion. Johnson’s
criticism is of the “judicial” kind. He passes a clear verdict on every poet. He defined, in his Dictionary, a critic as “a man skilled in
the art of judging literature; a man able to distinguish the faults and beauties of writing.” Obviously, the emphasis is on judgment
and discrimination. His method and conception of the function of a critic were later to be opposed by the poets and critics of the
romantic school, who put emphasis not on judicial verdict but on the “imaginative interpretation of literature.”

Dr. Johnson’s premises as a critic in this work are as essentially neoclassic as in his criticism of Shakespeare. Again, his
insistence on the function of poetry-“to instruct by pleasing”-is ubiquitous. All poetry is the work of genius, and genius is “that power
which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines,
amplifies, and animates.” Invention, imagination, and judgment are included in genius. What is a poet, according to Johnson? The
answer as interpreted by David Daiches is as follows: “The poet is a man seeking to give pleasure by conveying general truths about
experience with freshness and skill, the questions to be asked of a given poet are: what kind of a man, living in what age and
circumstances, was he, and being that sort of a man, with what degree of success did he produce works capable of giving pleasure by
their truth and liveliness?” The emphasis is again on “just representations of general nature.” Any departure from this basic
neoclassic prerequisite is stoutly opposed by Dr. Johnson. Of course, some strong personal prejudices also have a free play in his
criticism. Thus Milton is partly attacked on political grounds: “Milton’s republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious
hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; in petulance impatient of control, and pride disdainful of superiority.”
Johnson’s contempt for Milton’s sonnets is due to his dislike of the sonnet as a poetic form. He is harsh to Swift as he somewhat
suspects his religious sincerity. Such instances of prejudiced views can easily be multiplied. We certainly agree with George
Sherburn that Johnson’s “errors are gross, open and palpable.”

However, most of Johnson’s adverse opinions spring not from his literary and non-literary prejudices but his central point
of view regarding the purpose and function of literature. This point of view is built mainly on the neoclassical premises, though with
some very vital differences. Take, for instance, his condemnation of Cowley and the entire line of metaphysical poets. His views are
in strict accordance with the spirit of his age. The chief fault of the metaphysicals, in the eyes of Johnson, is their sacrifice of the
general for the particular and their excessive love of heavy learning. He observes : “The fault of Cowley, and perhaps all the writers of
the metaphysical race, is that of pursuing his thoughts to their last ramifications, by which he loses the grandeur of generality.” This
is what he has to say about metaphysical wit: “The most heterogenous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are
ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs and their subtlety surprises…”

Dr. Johnson has been frequently pilloried for his condemnation of Milton’s Lycidas. His condemnation was not, however,
the unthinking stricture of a fanatic, but a natural product of his fundamental attitude. The poet, as we have already pointed out,
must, according to Johnson, give representations of general nature with, to use Daiches’ words again, “truth” and “liveliness” (that
is, novelty). He should maintain a delicate balance between the two. If he adheres to truth too strictly at the cost of liveliness, the
odds are that his “representation” will become mechanical as he will usually employ highly traditional diction, idiom, and imagery.
On the contrary, if he strives too much for novelty, it is likely that he will depart considerably from truth and get bogged down in his
own whimsies. The first is the fault of Milton (in Lycidas) and the second that of the metaphysicals. Both are faults, but the latter is
somewhat less serious than the former. David Daiches observes that “in the last analysis, Johnson held that exhibitionist novelty was
better than the mechanical repetition of hereditary similes.” In condemning Lycidas, Johnson still shows his sense of the beautiful
poetry which Milton has been able to create even with his “schoolboy” similes and images.

This deficiency in appreciating the strictly aesthetic merits of poetry leads Johnson to unfair criticism of Gray and Collins
who are often called the precursors of Romanticism. His disapproval of Gray is not really due to his disapproval of all romantic
tendencies, but due to his disapproval of all artificial and extravagant language, the same for which he takes  Lycidas to task.
Basically, Johnson was against the use of classical mythology in modern English poetry. He maintained a vigorous independence
from most neoclassical dogmas. His leniency about the three dramatic unities and his disregard of the rigid conception of “kinds”
and the rules of decorum are instances in pojnt. Further we must remember that he made important concessions. He helped Percy
over the Reliques; he appreciated // Penseroso and Grongar Hill; he praised the Castle of Indolence; and he got over his dislike of
blank verse while dealing with Milton, Thomson, and Akenside. His objection against blank verse was not that it was not good but
that good blank verse was seldom written. His aesthetic capacity might be questioned but not his liberalism as a critic. He was not at
all deaf to the newer and richer poetry which had begun to be written in his age. However, he is at his best when dealing with the
poets who write that kind of poetry with which he is effortlessly in rapport. His criticism of Dryden and Pope is really remarkable.
The famous passage in which he compares the two poets, in the words of David Daiches, “has had a permanent effect on the history
of the reputation of those two poets…”

The business of criticism, in Johnson’s own words, is to free literary judgment from “the anarchy of ignorance, the
caprices of fancy and the tyranny of prescription, and to assign values on rational grounds.” In his practice, Johnson was true to his
conception. He may be charged with neoclassic bias; but M. H. Abrams meets this charge well : “If Johnson read Milton and Donne
through the spectacles of Pope, Wordsworth and Coleridge read Pope through the spectacles of Milton, while more recent critics
have read Wordsworth and Coleridge and Milton through the spectacles of Donne.” It may be more difficult to absolve Johnson of
his prejudices, but the normal sanity of his judgment, his abundant gusto, and pointed expression cannot be overlooked. He can yet
delight, if not guide, us.

AD's English Literature

Notes and Guides
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Evaluate Dr. Johnson as a Critic:Dogmatic and Magisterial; Prejudices and

Limitations
10/22/2012 06:40:00 AM

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Dr. Johnson'  Methods Dogmatic and Magisterial: - Dr. Johnson is one of the
greatest of literary critics of England. As a critic, his popularity and authority veined
with the size of romanticism because his views and opinions suffer form a number of
prejudices and limitation. He was a man of his age. He belongs to the school of ‘classic’
or ‘judicial’ criticism as against the ‘Romantics’ or Aesthetic criticism of the next
generation. We find him judging by set rules, “rules of old discovered and not devised”
in the tradition of Dryden and pope. It is this habit of applying timed rules to the poet
vender discussion that makes Johnson the” last great English critic who treated poets,
not as men to be understood, but as school boys to be corrected”. His judgment remain
essentially dogmatic and traditional and we find him disturbing praise a blame to poets,
“with the confident assurance of a school master looking over a boy’s exercise” (John
Bailey).

His Prejudices and Limitations: His Critical manner and theories were limited by
classical prejudices. He could not appreciate blank verse, and Milton, Gray and Collins
certainly do not deserve the judgment that Dr. Johnson passed upon them. The
traditionalists in him were art of sympathy with them. “Rationality” and “good sense”
were the tests he applied and the excesses of the “metaphysical” or the romantic were
alike abhorrent to him. Even Shakespeare, towards whom his tone is much woman, is
criticized for his many “excesses”.

Dr. Johnson was singularly deficient in aesthetic sensibility. He had no bear for music
and no eye the beauty of nature. He found the music of Lycidas harsh, and “one blade
of grass”, for him, “was like another”. He could appreciate only the regular, mechanical
and monotonous beat of the ‘heroic couplet’ and blank verse was a verse only to the
eyes. All his criticism is marred by his lack of appreciation of those who treat of nature
or the life in the midst of nature. Similarly, the highest Heights of poetry were beyond
him. Poetry for him was a “cunning craft” and not an expression of the human soul, as a
spontaneous over – flow of powerful feeling. Literary prejudices. Johnson was a Tony,
and his Tony prejudices colored his literary criticism. He could not appreciate Milton,
for the poet was a republican, one who even supported regicide. Johnson’s many
prejudices – Literacy, political, religions and personal – make him ingest in his criticism
of swift and Milton. “His judgment of gray and Collins is latching in kindness. A thick
veil hides the future from his gaze, conceals the coming of Romanticism”. 
His Greatness:

His classicism, sane and liberal: Such are Dr. Johnson’s limitations as a critic. But
his shortcomings should not blind no to his real greatness. No doubts he is ‘classic’ and,
as such, rational, but his outlook is not narrow. His broadness is the classic point of view
by a fruitful appeal to the resources of literacy psychology. He constantly appeals to
reality and experience, his sound, sturdy commonsense saves him from many of the
limitations of the Augustans. In his treatment of the dramatic unities, Johnson almost
ceases to be a classic and goes over to the opposite camp, the camp of the ROMANTIC. 

His Sound Scholarship: Among other assents of Johnson as a critic, are his sound
scholarship and independence. No doubt he was not so well lead in the classics, but he
had dives deep into English literature. He had a store of sound scholarship which guided
him and determined his judgment. The lives chosen for the lives of the poets were
roughly those with which he was intimately familiar and for most of whom he had a
warm sympathy. No prejudices, or preconceived notion and theories prevent him from
going straight to the heart of the mother and stating his opinions, directly, forcefully and
fearlessly. 

His Independence: Indeed, no critic was ever more independence, or more free from
slavery to traditional rules than Dr. Johnson. His measure of literary merit is impartial;
the claims of birth a authority fail to sway him. He judges even a Duke with the same
standards as the poorest of poetasters. Even the traditional idolatry of Shakespeare fails
to awe him. Independence is more necessary, and Dr. Johnson has that independent. He
is bold enough to enumerate the taunts of Shakespeare, which he attributes to two
causes- carelessness and excess of conceit. 
His Contribution:-Despite his limitations, he is one of the masters of English
criticism Dr. Johnson has performed this service for his  subjects which were the
English language, Shakespeare and the poets from Cowley to his own day. The
publication of his Dictionary makes an epoch in the history of English. After this event
English took its place among the literary language of Europe, and both foreignness and
Englishmen could now learn the language like scholars and with understanding. He not
only codified the floating and uncertain rules of spelling and grammar, but in his preface
to the Dictionary also recognized that a language is a living thing, and that it must grow
and change like a living being. He thus saved the language from growing rigid and
untrue. In this way, he sundered one of the greatest services that corn is rendered to the
literature of a nature.

At every step, he tries the dramatist by the tests of time nature and university and finds
him supreme. As a matter of fact, Johnson was the first to emphasize, and apply at
length the historic and comparative point of view in criticism. He was the first to
emphasize that a critic could be most useful. It is in a masterly way that he penetrates
the thickest of obscurities raised by Shakespeare’s language and goes straight to the
heart of his meanings. 

Despite Johnson’s many limitations as critics of, his ‘Live of the poets’ is one of the
greatest monuments and landmarks of English literature. Though there is some
unfairness, yet his criticism of poetry is still a thing to be read with interest, profit and
admiration. Poetry is an art and a craft as well is inspiration; it has a form and a
substance, and the from is as essential as the matter. It is this truth that Johnson makes
us see, and in this respect he, “ranks among the matters of criticism”.

Conclusion: Johnson was the chief of his age, and his faults are the faults of the times
in which he lived. His merits are entirely his own; they shows how far in advance of his
age he really was. No doubt, he attaches great importance to classical technique and rule
of composition, but he also appreciates the charm, the evocative power, the pause
beauty of the verse or the image. And his style contributes a great deal to the force and
effect of his remarks.