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JOHNSON’S CRITICISM OF SHAKESPEARE 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.” 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”. 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. 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. This indispensable ‘generality’ of a poet is further stressed on by Johnson in his novel Rasselas through the words of Imlac: “The business of poet is to examine, not the individual, but the species, to remark general properties and large appearances; he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest. He is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking features as recall the original to every mind, and must neglect the minuter discriminations ....” Inquiring into the reasons behind Shakespeare’s enduring success, Johnson makes an important general statement: “nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature.” Once again, by “general nature,” Johnson refers to the avoidance of particular manners and passing customs and the
foundation of one’s work on the “stability of truth,” that is, truths that are permanent and universal. And it is Shakespeare above all writers, claims Johnson, who is “the poet of nature: the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life.” His characters are not moulded by accidents of time, place, and local custom; rather, they are “the genuine progeny of common humanity,” and they “act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated.” Other poets, says Johnson, present a character as an individual; in Shakespeare, character “is commonly a species.” It is by virtue of these facts that Shakespeare’s plays are filled with “practical axioms and domestic wisdom... From his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence.” In contrast with the “hyperbolical or aggravated characters” of most playwrights, Shakespeare’s personages are not heroes but men; he expresses “human sentiments in human language,” using common occurrences. Indeed, in virtue of his use of speech derived from “the common intercourse of life,” Johnson views Shakespeare as “one of the original masters of our language.” Though Shakespeare “approximates the remote, and familiarises the wonderful,” the events he portrays accord with probability. In view of these qualities, Shakespeare’s drama “is the mirror of life.” In this matter Johnson was bold enough to differ from his contemporaries. For instance, Dennis and Rymer did not approve of Shakespeare’s depiction of Menenius, a senator of Rome, as a buffoon, and Voltaire did not approve of the Danish usurper (Claudius in Hamlet) being shown as a drunkard. Johnson defends Shakespeare and justifies his art by arguing that Shakespeare always makes nature predominant over accident. He considers these charges ‘petty cavils of petty minds”.