Preface to Shakespeare

 (E-content developed by Dr N. A. Jarandikar)

“Preface to Shakespeare”

Dr Samuel Johnson’s “Preface to Shakespeare” was published in 1765. It is an important contribution to English literary criticism. Johnson was a neo-classical critic and writer, and Shakespeare is considered as the romantic writer. But Dr Johnson is completely impartial when he judges Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s Merits according to Dr Johnson: 

1.   Truthfulness to nature: According to Johnson, the fundamental necessity of artistic greatness is truthfulness to nature. This guides Johnson to make a number of observations about Shakespeare’s greatness. For instance, the characters of Shakespeare  speak in the language of everyday life. Johnson states that Shakespeare’s characters are not affected by the practices of certain places or by the incidents of short-lived trends.

2.   Blending of tragedy and comedy: Shakespeare has blended tragedy and comedy in most of his plays. Johnson defends this blending of tragic and comic on the grounds of the neoclassical theory. For the neoclassicist, art is a realistic portrayal of mankind. On this ground, one can defend Shakespeare’s exercise of blending comic and tragic elements, for such a blending shows real human life which partakes good and bad, delight and sadness. Through his plays, Shakespeare presents a world where all human efforts and activities have similar significance.

3.   Negligence of unities: Johnson supports Shakespeare’s negligence of the unities of time, place, and action. The neo-classicists emphasised the three unities. Supporting Shakespeare Johnson states that the action of his dramas is dependent on some conventions which the spectator takes gladly. For example, if the audience can accept that the person standing on the stage is Julius Caesar or Antony, then the spectators can also approve of moving scenes from one place to another.

Johnson on Shakespeare’s Demerits in the Preface to Shakespeare:

1.   Negligence of virtue: Johnson says that Shakespeare’s biggest defect is that he abandons virtue to pleasure. According to Johnson, Shakespeare didn’t write his plays because he wanted to convey any moral purpose. Instead, he wanted to convey delight and pleasure through his plays.  Johnson also states that Shakespeare did not pay much attention to ‘poetic justice’; he develops his characters regardless of their right and wrong actions and at the end expels them casually.

2.   Loose plots: The second defect that Johnson points out about Shakespeare’s plays is the plot. Johnson’s complaint is that Shakespeare’s plots are loosely knit and if he had paid a little more attention and time, he could have improved. Johnson also implies that the end part of Shakespeare’s plays is promptly rounded off. And for this reason, the end parts of his plays do not seem as artistically ordered as their earlier sections.

3.   Anachronism: Another defect that Johnson points out about Shakespeare’s plays is an anachronism. Johnson says that in Shakespeare’s plays the conventions, ideas, and manners of one age or country are used randomly for another age or country. This creates a sense of impossibility within a play. For example, on one occasion in Shakespeare’s play, Hector quotes the words of Aristotle, which is unrealistic on a historical basis. 

4.   Shakespeare’s dialogues: Another defect that Johnson points out about Shakespeare’s plays is his dialogues. Johnson claims that the manner in which the comic characters indulge is generally gross and immoral. Because most of his characters are guilty of this, it often becomes hard to differentiate between refined characters and low characters.

5.   Shakespeare’s conceits and word-play: Johnson turns critical about Shakespeare’s tendency to use conceits and word-play. Johnson states that Shakespeare’s love for conceit and puns ruins many paragraphs which are otherwise sorrowful and warm. Shakespeare’s unrestrained love for quibbles and puns guides him to produce meaningless just as will-o-the-ship deceive a traveler. For Shakespeare his excessive love for pun proved to a fatal Cleopatra.