1. PART 5 : SAMUEL JOHNSON’S PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE
Samuel Johnson’s preface to the plays of William Shakespeare has long been considered a
classic document of English literary criticism. In it Johnson sets forth his editorial principles and
gives an appreciative analysis of the “excellences” and “defects” of the work of the great
Elizabethan dramatist. Many of his points have become fundamental tenets of modern criticism;
others give greater insight into Johnson’s prejudices than into Shakespeare’s genius
Perhaps no other document exhibits the character of eighteenth century literary criticism better
than what is commonly known as Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare. Written after Johnson had
spent nine years laboring to produce an edition of Shakespeare’s plays, the Preface to
Shakespeare is characterized by sweeping generalizations about the dramatist’s work and by
stunning pronouncements about its merits, judgments that elevated Shakespeare to the top spot
among European writers of any century. What sets Johnson’s work apart from that of his
contemporaries, however, is the immense learning that lies beneath so many of his judgments; he
consistently displays his familiarity with the texts, and his generalizations are rooted in specific
passages from the dramas. Further, Johnson is the first among the great Shakespeare critics to
stress the playwright’s sound understanding of human nature. Johnson’s focus on character
analysis initiated a critical trend that would be dominant in Shakespeare criticism (in fact, all of
dramatic criticism) for more than a century and would lead to the great work of critics such as
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and A. C. Bradley.
His systematic attempt to measure Shakespeare against others, both classical and contemporary,
became the model. Second, the Preface to Shakespeare exemplifies Johnson’s belief that good
criticism can be produced only after good scholarship has been practiced. The critic who wishes
to judge an author’s originality or an author’s contributions to the tradition must first practice
sound literary reading and research in order to understand what has been borrowed and what
has been invented.
Characteristically, Johnson makes his Shakespeare criticism the foundation for general
statements about people, nature, and literature. He is a true classicist in his concern with the
universal rather than with the particular; the highest praise he can bestow upon Shakespeare is
to say that his plays are “just representations of general nature.” The dramatist has relied upon
his knowledge of human nature, rather than on bizarre effects, for his success. “The pleasures of
sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth,”
Johnson concludes. It is for this reason that Shakespeare has outlived his century and reached
the point at which his works can be judged solely on their own merits, without the interference of
personal interests and prejudices that make criticism of one’s contemporaries difficult. Johnson
feels that the readers of his time can often understand the universality of Shakespeare’s vision
better than the audiences of Elizabethan England could, for the intervening centuries have freed
the plays of their topicality. The characters in the plays are not limited by time or nationality;
they are, rather, “the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always
supply, and observation will always find.
2. 1. A Genuine Representation of Human Nature:
Shakespeare is a poet of nature who faithfully represents human nature in his plays. He does not
falsify reality. Shakespeare is a poet of nature and self knowledge. His characters are natural;
they act and behave think and speak like human beings. His characters are the faithful
representations of humanity. He deals with passions and principles which are common to
humanity. He does not merely depict the particular manner and customs of any one country or
age. His characters have a universal appeal. But this does not mean that they do no have any
individual qualities. The speech of one character can not be placed in the mouth of another, and
they can easily be differentiated from each other by their speeches. The dialogue he uses “seems
to have been gleamed by different selection of common conversation and common occurrences.”
They are also true to the age, gender, or profession to which they belong. They are also true to
type. His characters truly manifest a realistic and convincing portrayal of human nature.
Shakespeare does not depict persons of either fabulous excellence or unexampled depravity. The
characters in his plays are not heroes but only human beings who act and think in the way in
which the reader himself would act and think under the circumstances. Even where the agency is
supernatural, the dialogue accords with real life. In his plays Shakespeare has shown human
nature not only as it acts in real solutions but as it would be found in situation which may never
arise. Johnson says that no writer before him, with the possible exception of Chaucer, has
portrayed human character in such a realistic manner. Shakespeare has gathered his knowledge
of human nature on the basis of his personal observation. This knowledge has enabled him to
portray a multiplicity and diversity of character. In this respect, he has none to intimate, though
he himself has been imitated by all writers.
2. Shakespeare: A Poet of Realism
Shakespeare’s realism, says Johnson is to be seen also in the fact that he does not give undue
prominence to the passion of love in his plays. Dramatists in general give an excessive
importance to the theme of love and often violate probability and misrepresent life. Shakespeare
knows that- “Love is only one of many passions,” and that it has no great influence upon the sum
of life.
3. Mingling of Tragic and Comic Elements
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. 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
Johnson defends Shakespeare for his mingling of the tragic and comic elements in his plays on
the ground of realism. Such mingling only serves to show us the course of the world in which
3. “the loss of one is the gain of another, at the same time” “the reveler hastening to his wine and
the mourner burying his friend.”
4. 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.
5. Violation of the Unities of Time and Place
Johnson does not disapprove of Shakespeare’s violation of the unities of place and time. He
defends Shakespeare o the ground of dramatic illusion. Literature is to be appreciated not by the
literal sense but by the imagination. The audience’s imagination is kept very active when he
watches a play. The audience knows that he is going to watch a fictitious reality. If an audience
in a theatre can accept the stage as a locality in the city of Rome, he will also accept the change
from Rome to Alexandria. The unity of time may like wise be violated on the same principle.
6. Philosophy of Life
It is because of the universality of his characterization that Shakespeare’s plays are full of
practical axioms and domestic wisdom. From them can be formulated a philosophy of life, of
great practical value in real life. He is not great only in particular passages but the entire conduct
of his action brings out his greatness as a poet of (human) nature.
7. An Established Authority
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. 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.
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
4. 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. If Shakespeare uses ghosts, he gives them humanly characteristics as they speak like
human beings such as Hamlet’s father’s ghost. He uses blank verse, bringing it nearer to the
language of prose.
8. Weaknesses in Shakespeare’s Plays according to Johnson
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”
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 " He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct,
that he seems to write without any moral purpose " . 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. This is, in his eyes,
Shakespeare's greatest flaw, though it does not supercede his other merits.
Shakespeare's plots, he says, are often very loosely formed and carelessly pursued. He neglects
opportunities of giving instruction or pleasure which the development of the plot provides to him.
He says, "The plots are often so loosely formed, that a very slight consideration may improve
them, and so carelessly pursued, that he seems not always fully to comprehend his own design."
Again he says that in many of his plays, the latter part does not receive much of his attention.
This charge is certainly true. The play of Julius Caesar clearly shows a decline of dramatic
interest in its second half. He says, "It may be observed, that in many of his plays the latter part is
evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and, in view of his reward,
he shortened the labour, to snatch the profit."
Next, Johnson considers Shakespeare's style and expression. According to him there are many
passages in the tragedies over which Shakespeare seems to have laboured hard, only to ruin his
own performance. The moment Shakespeare strains his faculties, or strains his inventive powers
unnecessarily, the result is tediousness and obscurity.
Reference
Johnson, Samuel. (1917). The Preface to Shakespeare. The Harvard Classics. New York: P. F.
Collier & Son.
