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Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare

The Preface is the impartial estimate of Shakespeares virtues and defects by a

powerful mind. (Halliday). Johnsons Preface to Shakespeare is a classic of literary
criticism in which he is above his political, personal, religious and literary prejudices:
mentions both the merits and demerits of Shakespeare like a true critic; and
become very honest and sincere in his estimate of Shakespeare. Johnson tests
Shakespeare by the fact and experience, by the test of time, nature and
universality, his defense to tragicomedy is superb and still unsurpassed; in which he
has excelled his guru Dryden. He finds Shakespeare great because he holds a mirror
to nature. In minimized the importance of love on the sum of life, Johnson
anticipates Shaw.

One of the first excellence of Shakespeare, as Preface shows: Shakespeare is above

all the writers, at least above the modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that
holds up to his readers a faithful mirror if manners and life. According to Johnson,
Shakespeare always makes nature predominate over accident. His blend of
tragedy and comedy is also nearer and more natural to life, because the mingled
drama approaches nearer to life :Mingled drama may convey all the instructions of
tragedy or comedy cannot be denied, because it includes both in its alternations of
exhibition and approaches nearer than either to the appearance of life

Shakespeare was the originator of the form, the character, the language and the
shadows of English drama and opens a mine contains cold and diamonds.
Addison speaks the language of poets, and Shakespeare of men, thus,
Shakespeare is one of the great and the original masters of the language. There are
a few limitations of Preface too: Johnson could not fathom the depths of
Shakespeares poetic genius. Nor could he think of the psychological subtleties of
his characterization, he was equally deaf to the overtones of Shakespeares poetry
at its most sublime his criticism of his perceptive powers. In the mystery of
Shakespeare tragedy was beyond the reach of his common sense. No wonder then
if he feels that Shakespeare was at his best in comedy. Nevertheless, these
shortcomings do not mar the basic merits of his Preface which is as immortal as the
plays of Shakespeare and the texts of Shakespeare

About the excellence of Shakespeares plot, Johnson says, our writers plots are
generally borrowed from novels, but due to his merit, his plots, whether historical
or fabulous, are always crowded with incidents, by which the attention of a rude
person was more easily caught than by sentiment or argumentation. Johnson
writes, Shakespeare knows how he should most please; and whether his practice is
more agreeable to nature; or whether his example has prejudiced the nation. He
could not see how the truth may be stated myth or symbol, how The Tempest and
The Winters Tale for instance, are more than pleasant romantic pieces; significantly,
he says of the latter that with all its absurdities, it is very entertaining.

The limitations of this critical sensibility are nowhere prominent than in his
complaint that Shakespeare seems to write without any moral purpose. He fails to
see the hidden morals of Shakespeares plays; to him only the explicitly stated
morals are the morals, thus, some of the most conspicuous virtues of Shakespeare,
for example, his objectivity and his highly individualized treatment of his characters,
are treated by Johnson as his defectsthese defects are certainly not
Shakespeares, but Johnsons. Shakespeare was the first playwright whose tragic as
well as comic plays succeeded in providing the dramatic pleasure appropriate to
them. He has given us excellent comedies without labour, which no labour can
improve, so the world prefers his comedies because they are profoundly and more
true to nature. However, the language of his comic scenes is the language of the
real life, neither gross nor refined and hence it has not gone obsolete.

Early in English drama Neither the character, nor dialogues were yet understood,
Shakespeare may be truly said to have introduced them both amongst us, and in
some of his happier scenes to have carried them both to the utmost height. In my
opinion, concludes Johnson, very few of the lines were difficult to his audience,
and that he uses such expressions as were them common, though the paucity if
contemporary writers makes them now seem peculiar.

His enumeration of Shakespeare in itself is a classic piece of criticism. These faults

he finds are owing to two causes(a) carelessness, (b) excess of conceit. The
detail analysis of the faults, says Raleigh, is a fine piece of criticism, and has
never been seriously challenged. Shakespeares obscurities arise from:

1. The careless manner of publication;

2. The shifting fashions and grammatical license of Elizabethan English;

3. The use of colloquial English;

4. The use of many allusions, the reference, etc., to topical events and
personalities;

5. The rapid flow of ideas, which often hurries him to a second thought before the
first been fully explained.

Thus, many of Shakespeares obscurities belong either to the age or the necessities
of stagecraft and to the man

Roland Barhes : Death of Author

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