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Samuel Johnson
The 'Lives of the English Poets' is "the richest, most
beautiful, and indeed most perfect production of Johnson's
pen." (Boswell). Discuss.
There is no element of exaggeration in the statement that the Lives of the Poets was the
crown of Johnson's achievement. The combination of biography and criticism that we find in this
collection of fifty-two literary biographies, is something new in critical history. The historical as well
as the intrinsic worth of the book is so great that critics have lavished praises and encomiums on
it without much reservation. Saintsbury calls it 'one of the most fortunate books in English
literature.'
Walter Raleigh finds it 'a book of wisdom and experience, a treatise on the conduct of life, a
commentary on human destiny.' George Watson says that 'in the Lives he is creating the
foundations of the nineteenth-century school of historical criticism by elevating the literary life to
a new critical eminence.' The Live of the Poets, to quote John Bailey, is Johnson's last,
longest, and most popular work'. Referring to the content of the book Macaulay says, 'the
remarks are eminently shrewd and profound. The criticisms are often excellent, and even when
grossly and provokingly unjust, well deserve to be studied. For, however, erronous they be, they
are never silly. They are the judgement of a mind tramelled by prejudice and deficient in
sensibility, but vigorous and acute. They, therefore, generally contain valuable truth which
deserves to be separated from the alloy; and at the worst, they mean something, a praise to
which much of what is called criticism in our times has no pretensions.'
For various reasons many defects have crept into the Lives. As the Lives were written in four
years—an average rate of about one Life a month, Johnson must have written at a terrific speed
and a certain degree of' haste' is discernible throughout. The work could not afford to be equal
consistently and throughout. Referring to this huge medley of writers on whom Johnson planned
to write is well put by Southey : "The poets before the Restoration were to Johnson what the
world before the Flood was to historians." The cumulative effect of all these limitations is that the
work is unequal. The serene mood of Johnson to which he attained towards the closing years of
his life is reflected in his portrayal of the Lives. John Bailey points out that "the Lives were written
at his ease, with his pension in his pocket, with the booksellers at his feet, with the consciousness
of an expectant and admiring public outside" This complacent attitude of mind accounts for a
certain degree of superficiality which is evident. By this time his beliefs and ideas were largely
established and ossified and hence no fresh and assididus approach is noticeable : "They were
written from a full mind and with a glowing pen, at a time when Johnson's critical opinions had
long been formed and when he was quite indisposed to renew the detailed labours of the
Dictionary."
Watson points out that the structure of the book is a tripartite one : biography, character,
criticism. The life begins with a chronological account of the poet's life—ancestry, birth, education,
etc. Johnson's remarks on the writing of biography are significant. Most biographies of his day he
describes as 'barren and futile.' He says that critic's duty is 'to reveal character in the light of
illuminating details of daily life.' 'It is much better, he adds 'that caprice, obstinacy, frolic and folly,
however, they might delight in the description, should be silently forgotten, than by wanton
merriment or unseasonable detection and a pang should be given to widow or friend'. The largest
part is covered by this section. The second section is the shortest and deals with a brief character
of the poet— his appearance and temperament. The third is purely critical. This formula has been
strictly followed throughout the book.

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However, it can be seen that the Lives are more biographical than critical. John Bailey says
"the art of biography is that of giving life to the dead; and that can only be done by the living. No
one was ever more above than Johnson." Watson holds that Johnson is not a very biographical
critic. In the modern terms, the Lives fall badly between two schools : those who, like the New
Critics between the wars, prefer their criticism devoid of biography, complain that Johnson is
largely biographical; and those who accept the critical relevance of some biographical facts will
wonder why Johnson uses his facts so little....He is rather a critic who has discovered that criticism
may usefully be practised as an appendage to biography.'
As regards the defects of the book, almost the same blemishes— likes, dislikes, taste,
temperament, faith, and idiosyncrasy, passion and prejudice—are noticeable as we find in his
general approach to criticism. Saintsbury observes : "Here and there extra-literary prejudice—
political, ecclesiastical, as in the case of Milton; partly moral, partly religious, and, it is to be feared,
a little personal, in as that of Swift—distorted the presentation." Some of these Lives are a
remarkable piece of criticism. The Life of Milton, for instance, is a 'monumental example of the
characteristic triumph and failures of Johnson's historical sense.' Johnson was indeed the most
perfect exponent of the Augustan poets. The characteristic tone of the Lives shows that they are
essentially a study of the Augustan mode in English poetry and the Lives of Dryden and Pope are
its real glories.'
We need not repeat the opinions of Johnson about some of the great poets as they have
been given in the general discussion of Johnson's applied criticism. However an extract, may be
given so as to illustrate Johnson's way of criticism :
The style of Dryden is capricious and varied, that of Pope is cautious and uniform; Dryden
obeys the motions of his own mind, Pope confines his mind to his own rules of composition.
Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform and gentle.
Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied
exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and
levelled by the roller.
Bearing in mind the multifarious aspects of the Lives we may say in the words of Walter
Raleigh that "the Lives are the maturest and strongest of Johnson's works." "For all these
reasons," states John Bailey "the Lives of the poets will always be eagerly read by those who
wish to understand a great man and a great period of English literature. His work closes an age;
it is the Temple of immortality of the great Augustans, and when it was published, already Burns
and Blake, Crabbe and Cowper were beginning to write. With them came in new ideals, destined
to affect both criticism and biography." With Johnson came an era to a close yielding place to a
new one.
It is, therefore true that Johnson's Lives is the richest, most beautiful, and indeed most perfect
production of Johnson's Pen, as stated by Boswell. All other critical works of Johnson fade when
compared to this.

Give your estimate of Dr. Johnson as a literary critic.

Johnson was an intrepid critic of his time, but his criticism, though marshalled with an
absolute integrity and vigour, remained wanting because of his personal prejudices. His was an
authentic literary voice, yet it gets corroded with the passage of time.
He looked at things with the coloured glasses, and much of it smacked of dogmatism which had
the full weight of his personality at its back. He was sought and adored in the literary circle of his

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age. His words carried weight in the sense that it overawed the readers and the sales shot up
and down at his thundering evaluation of the subject he treated. He could both malign and
elevate. He damaged the reputation of Milton, as they say, for two generations of readers but
the subsequent criticism acquitted, nay uplifted the poet from the position he was pushed to by
this great literary dictator. Johnson was the moving spirit of his circle of literary friends which
included the brains of the age. Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, Fox, Reynolds, Gibbon, Sheridan and
many others. The intellectual dynamo had the ready wit, and the pen dipped in acid to wield
against the writers. He cudgled Gray. He cudgled Fielding. He cudgled Milton. They were
severely bludgeoned and they bled, but the judgement of the time ran against the dogmatism of
Johnson.
The literary dictator of the Eighteenth Century was a man of relentless brutal candour, but no
one could challenge'him for his courage of conviction. He spurned an untested dogma. The lucid
approach to a fact was his tendency, but the personal temperament of the man interfered with the
proper judgement. Often the political prejudices ran counter to the man he was out to evaluate.
But he, no doubt, thrilled people with his witty remarks. He was anything but impartial, at least to
a degree. He was a man of robust commonsense. He loathed extremes in everything, yet he
himself carried his criticism to an extreme. It is no wonder that his verdicts, at least some of them,
have been revised since then.
Johnson was a man of classical temperament. Anything smacking of romanticism made him
sniff with a distaste. He smote Gray for it. He smote Collins for it, simply because they looked
ahead of their age. Johnson loved the traditional values and simply refused to see the rise of
a new tendency. The transition left him cold and looked down upon any kind of innovation. He
had an extreme dependence on the strength of his :xperience. There is a sort of savage glow
about his observations. He was much beloved of the English people, and catered to their taste
with his typical conservatism; and John Bull fed himself pleasantly at what he chose to cater. He
voiced the middle-class aspirations, so much so that Carlyje called him a 'national hero'. His
strong personality could bridge the distance between the middle-class and the aristocracy of his
time. But he remained terribly moored to his literary conservatism. "A bigoted and extreme Tory
Johnson had to criticise the principles and political actions of one who held doctrines as extreme."
How could the Prime Minister of Literature tolerate the adverse political opinion! But it does not
mean that he was not magnanimous; he was magnanimons indeed. Often he was found 'hard to
please, and easily offended, impetuous, and irritable in temper. The humour in him was sardonic
and not genial. John Bailey observes about him in the following words :
"Samuel Johnson was in his life time a well-known figure in the streets, a popular name in
the press. His popularity is certainly not diminished by the fact that he was the complacent victim
of many of our insular prejudices and exhibited a good deal of the national tendency to a crude
and self-confident Philistinism....they laugh at him and love him still."
Mr. C. H. Firth considers his popularity as a biographer more enduring than his criticism. His
criticism has been evaluated as 'superannuated', but it has in its womb something of permanent
value, indeed. Perhaps Macaulay strikes the true note while evaluating a man like him. "His
criticisms are often excellent and even when grossly provokingly unjust well deserve to be
studied." About his criticisms he says further, "They are the judgments of a mind tramelled by
prejudice and deficient in sensibility, but vigorous and acute …….....they, therefore,
generally contain a portion of valuable truth which deserves to be separated from the alloy."
For Johnson 'truth' was the basis of'excellence', but the trouble is about the perception of the
same. A truth for one may not be the truth for other. The absolute truth might be a misnomer for
Johnson. But no one can deny him the two virtues, 'dependence' and 'sincerity'. He 'judges quite
at home in judging the didactic type of poetry, and not the highly imaginative ones'. It is one reason

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that he could not judge Milton properly. 'His literary criticism is the expression not only of the man
but of his age.' He could not perhaps catch the subtle nuances of the romantic flight of poetry
though one cannot call in question his 'broad sanity', 'mighty intellect' and 'integrity of feeling'. He
had the vast moral problems with great critical acumen; and, indubitably, most dictatorial in his
pronouncement, as he was. Mr. Cazamian upholds the position of Johnson for several reason his
philosophy of experience, reflection, clear judgment, balanced mind, the 'resolution of an energy
bound up with the supreme needs of action,' 'the rough vigour', 'the gravity', 'the obstinate realism',
and for his capacity to make 'a silent appeal to the deep instincts of the English people.'
As a critic Johnson took to the 'sober reason' and stated facts with a certain clarity of mind.
He was most outspoken in his utterance. Johnson himself observes about the task of a critic
" in order to make a true estimate of the abilities and merits of a writer, it is always
necessary to examine the genius of his age and the opinions of his contemporaries.' He says
further about it in the following words : 'The business of a critic is not to point out beauties rather
than faults to hold out the light of reason, whatever it may discover.' The criterion of Johnson is
partly correct, and partly incorrect. I suppose it is also the task, and a major one too, to discern
the beauties of a work of art. He is correct about the 'light of reason', but who is to judge reason,
which might be fallacious in its inception. It is not only the power of intellect but catholicity and
dispassionate observation are what a critic needs while evaluating a work of art. Johnson's power
of intellect is beyond dispute, but his catholicity can be called in question. Dispassionate he never
is, his very personality rises to check this vital impulse. He is a convicting magisterate in the realm
of criticism. He 'delivers himself with severe magisterial dignity' though with vigorous
authoriatative brevity.' He works himself on the high sounding general propositions. The classical
dogma casts its shadow across his path of critical approach. He has a vast capacity to perceive
an intellectual fact rather than the emotional one. The Romantic disproportion would invariably
set him on fire. He has been aptly described as 'genius irritable' and 'a snarler of his time'.
However Georges Saintsbury adjudges him on a sound footing when he says : 'Johnson is quite
as prejudiced; but his prejudice is not in the least insane. His critical calculus is perfectly sound
on its postulates and axioms.'

Describe Johnson's main achievement in the field of literary

criticism. What are his limitations as a critic.
Dr. Johnson is an authentic literary voice of his time. He is called the prime minister of
literature and the literary dictator of the eighteenth century. Carlyle honoured him by calling him
a 'national hero'. He had a great deal of courage and conviction and was a man of robust
commonsense. Though he carried his criticism to extremes yet he was impartial and vigorous. He
thrilled his readers with his witty remarks.

He was a literary sensation of his time. He laid down values if not the literary laws. Though
Nature could not give him by way of handsomeness, yet he enriched the literary aesthetics with
the opulence of a Sultan. He voiced middle-class aspirations. He was a beloved of the English
because he catered to their taste.
After the death of Pope in 1744, Dr. Johnson (1709-84) emerged as 'the undisputed arbiter'
of literary taste of age. With him, says George Watson, "English Criticism achieves greatness on
a scale that any reader can instantly recognize." F. R. Leavis rightly observes : "Johnson's
criticism, most of it, belongs with the living classics : it can be read a fresh every year with
unaffected pleasure and new stimulus. It is alive and life-giving." C. H. Firth regards much of

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criticism as one of permanent value', and Mary Lascelles calls him "a movement on the part of
that volume of waters whose capacity for motion is inexhaustible."
His criticism bears the weight of his massive personality and the vigour of his powerful mind.
A rationalist by temperament, he refused to pay blind homage to any critical cult. "I cannot receive
my religion from any human hand," he wrote in one of his letters. He possessed a sanity of outlook
and a catholicity of mind, rarely found in any other English critic of his age. His unflinching faith in
reason and common sense, his fundamental respect for the voice of the people, his healthy
pragmatic approach to critical problems, his delightfully balanced style are some other qualities
of Dr. Johnson as a critic. He emphasized the necessity for judging a work of art as a whole, or
again, the need for taking into account historical considerations in forming literary judgement. He
based his practice upon the rule derived from the ancients, but he was no slavish follower of the
rules. He was able to rise above the literary convention. He accepted rules only as a conventional
check upon licence and whenever he found them unsuitable for modern conditions as in the case
of the unities of time and place he cast them aside. He accepted truth and reason and nature as
the basis of his criticism, suggested that time was a test of literary value, emphasized the
necessity of judging a work of art as a whole with its historical perspective in mind.
Johnson was pre-eminently a scholar, widely read in classical and contemporary literature.
Like Bacon he could have said to have taken all knowledge as his province. Oxford's honorary
doctorate, compilation of such a big dictionary were no accidents. With his erudite learning he
combined an immense experience of the world and knowledge of men. His memory was
astonishingly retentive. He could cite passage after passage from English and Classical poetry
without having had to look at the text. His tremendous mental vigour was combined with his
powerful expression. He could say things with great force and precision, without mincing words.
He was one of the most clear-headed persons of the Age of Reason.
Some of the other qualities that elevate him to the rank of a great critic and lend a distinctive
note to his criticism are: his humanistic outlook on life and literature, his unflinching faith in reason
and common sense, his fundamental respect for the voice of the people, his
healthy pragmatic approach to critical problems, and above all his delightfully balanced
style. T. S. Eliot describes him as "a man who had a specialized ear for verbal music."
Estimating the general achievement of Johnson as a critic, Atkins says : "More successful in
dealing with the Augustans than with earlier or later poets, and with prose work rather than with
poetry, he opened up new ground with what is in effect the history of a whole century of English
poetry; and while many of his judgements hold good today, they are presented in a style, rhetorical
and antithetic it may be, yet always clear,
forceful and often picturesque Johnson reminds us that literature, whatever else it may be, is
a vehicle of rational thought and articulate emotion that it is subject to no rigid moral requirements,
but is essentially an uplifting power enabling men 'to enjoy life or to endure it', thus making
a contribution to the art of living Yet it is as a master who helped in changing the current
of critical ideas that he figures in critical history. Having made use of psychological tests and
having revealed incidentally the limits of the prose understanding for critical purposes, he
unconsciously prepared the way for the later triumphs of those who riade imagination or the higher
reason their criterion of poetic values. And for this and other reasons his claims to greatness as
a critic admit of no dispute; even though he was one who, "attaining his full purpose, lost himself
in his own lustre."
By temperament and practice, by the influence of the spirit of his age, by the company he
kept, by the books he read, by the climate in which he grew, he is very much a neo-classicist.

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There is in his critical approach a predominance of the traditional values and classical dogma, His
love of reason, rationalism, grandmanliness, finish, perfection, correction, preference of intellect
to emotion, anti-romantic attitude, emphasis on morality, urbanity and chastity of diction and style,
clarity of mind, love of form, harmony and accuracy, liking for convention and universality are
some prominent features that make him a neo-classical critic. Yet he is for liberty whenever need
be. He does not follow classicism blindly. He adopts a pragmatic approach. He rebels against the
set rules and canons whenever he feels the need to do. Many a time he gives an evidence of an
unresolved tension between the neoclassical conscience and the liberating impulse.
His Limitations
That he has certain weaknesses too, cannot be denied. He was preoccupied with his peculiar
'stock-responses' to literature. He had a specialized 'ear (for the 'recurrence of settled numbers',
but he was deaf to all other subtle rhythms of the English language. His myopic vision made him
insensible to the beauties of nature. His judgement was sometimes vitiated by his preoccupation
with morality. His fault was that "he failed to distinguish between morality in the widest sense and
mere didacticism." His range of poetic taste was also narrow. He was against all emotionalism
and the higher flights of imagination. He warned the poet not to "number the streaks of the tulip"
but to "rise to general and transcendental truths." He was against sacred poetry, as he said :"The
ideas of Christian theology are too simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestic
for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures is to magnify by a concave mirror the
sidereal hemisphere." If one were to go by Johnson's tastes, one will have to debar a major part
of English poetry from one's definition of the 'term'. Some critic have fault with his 'ear' and 'taste'
while others have denounced him for his rigid moral and religious attitudes. To some his critical
code is conventional and narrow, while to others he appears to be a man of inexorable partialities.
His method is nothing if not magisterial. He treats poets as schoolboys to be corrected. He
takes for granted certain fixed rules and passes sentence on every work of art accordingly. His
judgment remains essentially dogmatic and traditional and we find him distributing praise or blame
to poets "with the confident assurance of a school master looking over a boy's exercise" (John
Bailey).
His critical manners and theories were limited by classical prejudices. He could not appreciate
blank verse. Milton, Gray and Collins certainly do not deserve the judgement that he passed upon
them. He was singularly deficient in aesthetic sensibility. He had no ear for music and no eye for
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 closed his eye and ear to the beauties of the blank verse. Poetry for him was
a "cunning craft" and not an expression of the human soul, or a spontaneous over-flow of powerful
feelings.
Much of Johnson's criticism is vitiated by his extra-literary prejudices. Johnson was Tory, and
Tory Prejudices coloured his literary criticism. He could not appreciate Milton, for the poet was a
Republican. His criticism of Gray and Collins is lacking in kindness. A thick veil hides the future
from his gaze, conceals the coming of Romanticism.
Conclusion
But his limitations should not make us forget that he was trained in 'great positive tradition.'
His limitations, as F. R. Leavis has said, "are commonly both misunderstood and overstressed."
As a practical critic he made use of the biographical, historical and comparative methods of
criticism. In the field of biographical criticism "his achievement is to turn the literary life into a
vehicle of criticism." Here is a beginning of a method which was later developed by the nineteenth

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century of critics like Sainte-Beuve. In the field of historical studies also his contribution is
significant, he has rightly been called by Watson "the true father of historical criticism in English."
His use of the comparative method of criticism is nowhere better illustrated than in his life of Pope.
He was the first English critic to attempt a systematic work, the Lives of the Poets.-Th'is work is a
kind of a history of the English poetry upto his time. His work on metaphysical poets and
Shakespeare too is of very much permanent value.
Sir Joshua Reynolds remarked that no one had liked Johnson "the faculty of teaching
inferior minds, the art of thinking." He left his subject-matter of criticism more respected and better
understood. "The services Johnson rendered to Shakespeare are only second to those he
rendered to the language in which Shakespeare wrote." His Preface to Shakespeare was
pronounced by Adams, "the most manly piece of criticism that was ever published in my country."
As mentioned by John Bailey, the world cannot show "any sixty pages about Shakespeare
exhibiting so much truth and wisdom as these." At every step he tries the dramatist by the tests
of time, nature and universality and finds him supreme. He was the first not only to emphasize
and apply historical and comparative point of view in criticism but was also first to emphasize that
it was in interrogation and not in emendation that the real duty of the critic lay. 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 meaning. He reveals himself to be a master of the rare art of prose
paraphrase of poetry. He rids himself of traditional Shakespeare worship and is bold enough to
enumerate his faults. To quote John Bailey again, "Shakespeare has had subtler and more
poetical critics than Johnson; but no one has equalled the insight, sobriety, lucidity, and finality
which Johnson shows in his own field."
"He was a poet and, no doubt, his poetieal experience assisted his criticism : but he did not
write, like Dry den, as an artist examining another artist's methods. He wished to form his readers'
judgement, to qualify their minds to think justly about Poetry, and his appeal is, therefore, to the
hearts and minds of readers and not to the authority of books. " (J. T. Butt).

Critically comment on Dr. Johnson's defence of tragi-comedy

in his 'Preface to Shakespeare.'
The most remarkable passage in the Preface, according to Wimsatt, is surely the one
concerning Johnson's defence of tragi-comedy. His defence is marked by his realistic approach.
By the rules of critics (and also by the practices of ancient Greek and Roman dramatists), the
mixture of tragedy and comedy in a play stands condemned but 'there is always,' says Johnson,
'an appeal open from criticism to nature.' There are two natural grounds to justify it: that the
alternation of pleasure and pain in a play pleases by its variety; and that life itself is a mingled
yarn, pleasure and pain together. Secondly, the tragi-comedy by partaking of both tragedy and
comedy 'approaches nearer than either to the appearance of life.'

As practised by Shakespeare, tragi-comedy is even a distinct species of the dramatic art

'exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow,
mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and
expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the
same time, the reveller is hastening to his wine, and the mourner burying his dead; (and) in which
the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolic of another....'

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Though Shakespeare has been much criticized by critics and writers for mixing comic and
tragic scenes, yet Johnson defends him very intelligently, logically and realistically. His defence
is based on the following arguments:—
(1) In his mixing of the tragic and the comic, Shakespeare is true to nature. In real life also there
is a mingling of the good and evil, joy and sorrow, tears and smiles, and so in mixing tragedy
and comedy, Shakespeare merely holds a mirror to nature. This may be against rules, but
'there is always appeal open from rules in criticism to nature.'
(2) Tragi-comedy is nearer to life than either tragedy or comedy, and so it combines within
itself the pleasure as well as the instruction of both. In tragi-comedy the high and the low
combine, both for instruction and pleasure.
(3) The interchange of the serious and the gay, of the comic and tragic, does not interrupt the
progress of the passions, i.e., it does not result in any weakening of effect.
(4) Moreover, it should be remembered that all pleasure consists in variety. Tragi-comedy
can satisfy a greater variety of tastes, "and continued melancholy is often not pleasing."
Shakespeare can always move whether to tears or to laughter.
Critics have pointed out that Dr. Johnson's defence of tragi-comedy is not very convincing.
P. A. W. Collins writes : "Johnson's defence of tragi-comedy is inadequate." "When
Shakespeare's plan is understood, most of the criticisms of Rymer and Voltaire vanish away, but
an understanding of Shakespeare's plan is not much furthered by suggestions that these plays
exhibit 'the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow', that
they are doubly instructive because they may 'convey all the instruction of tragedy or comedy',
and that anyway 'all pleasure consists in variety'—and least of all by the assertion
that Shakespeare's disposition led him to comedy....In tragedy he is always
struggling after some occasion to be comic'. Shakespeare's 'variety', both in his whole canon and
within each play. Johnson appreciated; but neither he, nor any of his contemporaries, understood
the unity-in-complexity of either his plotting or his poetry, let alone the interrelation between his
plotting, his poetry and his characterization.
George Watson also thinks that Johnson's justification of tragi-comedy is based on conflicting
grounds. He says : "It will hardly do to justify tragi-comedy on Dryden's grounds that contraries
set off each other, and then to excuse 'the rules of criticism' on the grounds that 'there is always
an appeal open from criticism to nature', and 'the mingled drama' can be shown to have instructed
as well as pleased : this is a characteristically Johnsonian use of the escape-clause."
It is, however, to be remembered that Johnson's main forte was his robust common sense.
He could not indulge in the niceties of the modern Shakespeare scholars and critics. His approach
was highly pragmatic and his defence of Shakespeare's tragi-comedy is the natural product of
that approach. It is therefore at once the strength and the weakness of Johnson's critical
sensibility.
As Johnson's criticism is closely allied with his deep intuitions, his defence of tragi-comedy
assumes a new dimension. It is not 'a mere abstract and thin cerebration which for some reason
he undertook in opposition to his own genuine response'. As W. K. Wimsatt says, "It is difficult to
imagine any external reason which could have coerced him. The defence of mingled drama is
indeed a testimony to Johnson's theoretical intelligence, but at the same time it would seem to be
tied into something very deep, though sometimes less articulate and clear, in Johnson's nature—
that is, his strongly religious sense of mystery in the universe of the inscrutable—the
supernatural. This sense, when it is operating, induces in him a much less demanding attitude

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towards the terrestrial distribution of good and evil, rewards and punishments. It is this sense
largely which moves the Johnson who wrote the pleasantly darkened fable of Rasselas, the
Johnson who turned his withering scorn or he complacent rationalism of Soame Jenyns's Free
Inquiry Into the Na 'are and Origin of Evil. "

What according to Dr. Johnson are the demerits of

Shakespeare, the dramatist?
Dr. Johnson's analysis of Shakespeare is very judicious. It analyses both the merits and
demerits of Shakespeare's plays, Dr. Johnson praises Shakespeare for his faithful depiction of
human nature. He found that Shakespeare made nature predominate over accident, that he
depicted the influence of the general passions, and that he successfully presented life in its native
colours. Shakespeare offers characters who think, speak and act as normal human beings in like
situations. The dialogue is level with life because he "approximates the remote and familiarises
the wonderful." The language of the characters is natural and as such truthful.

Then Johnson turns to the weaknesses of Shakespeare. In this part of the Preface we have
Johnson the neo-classicist and the moralist. He finds the following faults in Shakespeare's plays
:—
1. Lack of Morality
Dr. Johnson accuses Shakespeare of lacking in morality. 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. From his writings indeed a system of social duty may be selected, for he that
thinks reasonably must think morally; but his precepts and axioms drop casually from him; he
makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to show in the virtuous a
disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at
the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance;
for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independent of time
or place."
2. Lack of Propriety
Johnson attacks Shakespeare's anachronisms as violating probability. Decorum is upheld as
he speaks of the futility of the "reciprocations of smartness and contests of sarcasm."
Shakespeare's jests, we read, "are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious." And the
dramatist had not chosen the best modes or gaiety. Propriety too has been ignored in the matter
of diction, for there are "the language and the set speeches in tragedy, and the excessive use of
conceits and quibbles throughout his plays."
3. Lapses in Dramatic Composition
Then Johnson proceeds to discuss Shakespeare's lapses in dramatic composition. First,
there are tragi-comedies which are neither tragedies nor comedies. These plays are not in
accordance with the rules. But they are true to human nature and fulfil the set goals of the
dramatist. Secondly, the loose construction of some plots, and thirdly the improbable endings in
some plays are also some glaring defects of the plays of Shakespeare.
4. Lack of Poetic Justice

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In the plays of Shakespeare, especially in his tragedies there is a lack of poetic justice, that
he sacrifices virtue to convenience, and that the major figures suffer more than they deserve
because of their faults. The punishment inflicted on them is disproportionate to their sins or
wrongs.
5. Violation of History
Dr. Johnson also objects to Shakespeare's anachronisms or violations of chronology. There
are no clear-cut distinctions between history and tragedy in the plays of Shakespeare.
6. Loose Structures of His Plots
"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. He
omits opportunities of instructing or delighting which the train of his story seems to force upon him
and apparently rejects those exhibitions which would be more affecting; for the sake of those
which are more easy."
"He had no regard to distinction of time or place, but gives to one age or nation, without
scruple, the customs, institutions, and opinions of another, at the expense not only of likelihood,
but of possibility.
7. Faults in His Comedies
In his comic scenes he is seldom very successful when he engages his characters in
reciprocations of smartness and contests of sarcasms; their jests are commonly gross, and their
pleasantry licentious; neither his gentleman nor his ladies have much delicacy nor are sufficiently
distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners.
8. Faults in Tragedies
in tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his labour is more. The
effusions of passion which exigence forces out are for the most part striking and energetic; but
whenever he solicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his theories is humour,
meanness, tediousness, and obscurity."
9. Faults in Narration
"In narration," says Dr. Johnson, "he affects disproportionate pomp of diction, and a
wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might
have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in dramatic poetry is naturally tedious, as it is
unanimated and inactive,-and obstructs the progress of the action; it should therefore always be
rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakespeare found it an encumbrance and instead
of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity and splendour."
10. Other Faults
Other faults of Shakespeare relate to his declamations. His declamations are commonly 'cold
and weak'. He uses tiresome quibbles in his plays. "A quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous
vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way,
and sure to engulf him to the mire A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he
lost the world, and was content to lose it." He also neglects unities of time and place. His histories
are not subject to the law of unity, as they are neither tragedies nor comedies.
Yet these faults in Dr. Johnson's views do not lessen Shakespeare's greatness as a unique
dramatic genius.

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Clearly bring out the critical value of the 'Preface to Shakespeare.'

What are its main merits ? What is the place in the history of
Shakespearean criticism ?
Dr. Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare is a classic of literary criticism. It displays all
Johnson's gifts at their best—the lucidity, the virile energy, the individuality of his style; his sturdy
commonsense and discernment; and his massive knowledge of the English language and
literature. In his criticism of Shakespeare he is above his usual political, personal, religious and
literary prejudices.
His judgement here is impartial and objective. He mentions both the merits and faults of
Shakespeare like a true critic. He is very honest and sincere in his estimate of Shakespeare. He
is able to free himself from the shackles of classical dogma and tradition. In an age of classicism
he dismisses the classical concepts of the unities of Time and Place. He tests Shakespeare by
fact and experience, by the test of time, nature and universality. His defence of tragi-comedy is
superb and still unsurpassed. He has excelled his guru Dryden. He finds Shakespeare great
because he holds a mirror to nature. In minimizing the importance of love on the sum of life,
Johnson anticipates Shaw.
His enumeration of faults in 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 detailed analysis
of the faults" says Raleigh, "is a fine piece of criticism, and has never been seriously challenged."
Shakespeare's obscurities arise from
(a) the careless manner of publication;
(b) the shifting fashions and grammatical licence of Elizabethan English;
(c) the use of colloquial English,
(d) the use of many allusions, references, etc., to topical events and personalities,
(e) the rapid flow of ideas which often hurries him to a second thought before the first has been
fully explained.
Thus many of Shakespeare's obscurities belong either to the age or the necessities of
stagecraft and not to the man. "In my opinion," concludes Johnson, "very few of his lines were
difficult to his audience, and that he uses such expressions as were then common, though the
paucity of contemporary writers makes them now seem peculiar.
The object of all criticism is to make the obscure and the confused clear and understood and
it is this service which Johnson has performed to Shakespeare. "Johnson's strong grasp of the
main thread of the discourse, his sound sense, and his wide knowledge of humanity, enables him,
in a hundred passages, to go straight to Shakespeare's meanings." (Raleigh). Johnson led
Shakespearean criticism back from paths that led to nowhere, and suggested directions in which
discoveries might be made. He was the fist to emphasize the historical and comparative point of
view in criticism. He says in the Preface, "every man's performances, to be rightly estimated, must
be compared with the state of the age in which he lived and with his own particular opportunities."
It was he who, "stemmed the tide of rash emendation, and the ebb which began with him has
continued ever since." With great shrewdness and acuteness, he states in the Preface that "they
who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right than we who read it only in

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imagination." Therefore, the readings of the earliest editions must be true, and should not be
disturbed without sufficient reason.
In short, to quote John Bailey again, "Shakespeare has had subtler and more poetic art than
Johnson; but no one has equalled the insight, sobriety, lucidity and finality which Johnson shows
in his own field." Johnson's work on Shakespeare has not been superseded. He has been
depreciated and neglected ever since the 19th century brought in the new aesthetic and
philosophical criticism. The 20th century, it seems likely, will treat him more respectfully."
(Raleigh).
"Johnson's Preface" writes E. E. Halliday, "is remarkable not so much for what it says as for
what it is, the judicial summing up of the opinion of a century; it is the impartial estimate of
Shakespeare's virtues and defects by a powerful mind anxious not to let his prejudices prevent
the defects as he saw them from weighing too lightly in the balance. It is the final verdict of an
epoch."
There are a few limitations of the Preface too. Johnson could not fathom the depths of
Shakespeare's poetic genius. Nor could he think of the psychological subtleties of his
characterization. He was equally deaf to "the overtones of Shakespeare's poetry at its most
sublime. His criticism of Shakespeare's verbal quibbling shows the deficiency of his perceptive
powers. The mystery of a Shakespearean tragedy was beyond the reach of his common sense.
No wonder then if he feels that Shakespeare was at his best in comedy; 'In tragedy he often writes
with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at last with little felicity; but in his comic
scenes, he seems to produce without labour, what no labour can improve." He could not see "how
truth may be stated in myth or symbol, how The Tempest and Winter's Tale, for instance, are
more than pleasant romantic pieces: significantly, he says-ef the latter that 'with all its absurdities,
it is very entertaining. The limitations of his critical sensibility are nowhere more prominent than
in his complaint that Shakespeare "seems to write without any moral purpose." He" fails to see
the hidden morals of Shakespeare's plays; to him only the explicitly stated morals are the only
morals. Thus some of the most conspicuous virtues of Shakespeare, for example, his objectivity
and his highly individualised treatment of his dramatic characters, are treated by Johnson as his
"defect." These defects are certainly not Shakespeare's, but Johnson's.
But these shortcomings do not mar the basic merits of his Preface. His Preface is as immortal
as the plays of Shakespeare. They demonstrate to the best his mature and profound sense of the
human situation, his study and erudition. The tests of Shakespeare provided by him are valid
even today.

Dr. Samuel Johnson as a Critic and Biographer from 'Life

of Cowley'
Dr. Samuel Johnson was a notable figure among his contemporaries. His physical traits
have been given permanence by the painter Reynolds in a speaking portrait. He began
his life in the midst of books in his father’s shop. He was a voracious reader and dipped
into everything. He was an orthodox and had a respect for traditional hierarchies. He
possessed a rational attitude of mind as well as conservative tendencies.

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The progresses of his doctrine are less obvious in The Lives of the Poets. But these short
compact memoirs are frequently regarded as little masterpieces. Johnson was limited in
his choice by the preferences of the publishers and therefore he accepted a perspective
of literature which dated the rise of English poetry from Cowley. He approached the task
imposed upon him as a psychologist. Here again in a board sense he was a moralist, no
less than as a critic.

Beside the main figures, there pass before our eyes the minor ones, verse writers of noble
birth and penurious men of letters. It was one of the reasons that Cowley gain a place in
his Lives of the Poets. He was conscientious and grave tempered by humor. Johnson did
not hesitate to distribute praise and blame. His measure of literacy merit is impartial. His
attitude is firm and decided. It rests upon principles that are clearly conceived. In a sense
it may be called dogmatic. It does not exclude delicate differences and tolerate the
individual varieties of temperaments; even it does not always show all the same degree
of sympathy.

Johnson overwhelmingly appreciates the poems of Cowley and makes him a great
metaphysical poet but does not hesitate a bit to expose the shortcomings and failings in
his writing. He appraises the significance of life of Cowley at its full value and traces back
the work to the man. But he does not get rid of certain puritan narrowness. His mind is
equipped with a kind of subtle relativism, which goes straight to the essential. These are
the main traits of Johnson found in his Lives of the Poets. He is not only a biographer but
also the critic who goes straight to the essential, seizes the kernel of ideas or of moral
substance in the works of Cowley and bases his estimate upon the inner element.

Johnson therefore appreciates Cowley from the standpoint of the moralists, first of all and
properly speaking as the philosopher. He appreciates Cowley as the artist. He feels and
judges from in certain cases with felicity and sureness. No doubt, he attached essential
importance to construction to harmony of tone, transition, to all the techniques of
classicism.

Dr. Johnson’s Account of Metaphysical Poetry in Life of

Cowley
Metaphysical poetry is unified by a philosophical conception of the universe and of the
role assigned to the human spirit in the great drama of existence. This type of poetry was
known for bold and ingenious conceits, subtle thought and frequent use of paradox as
well as the directness of language.

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Dr. Johnson has followed Spat for guidance but he does not fail to give his own ideas
and opinions. He has compared two great poets of dissimilar genius, Milton and Cowley.
He has shown that Cowley and Milton may be compared but he advantage seems to lie
on the side of Cowley. Milton expresses the thoughts of ancients in their language, but
Cowley, without much loss of purity and elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to
his own conception.

The metaphysical poets usually wrote love poems and religious poems. Donne, Marvell,
Cowley and Vaughn wrote both these types of poems. According to Dr. Johnson, the love
poems of the metaphysical have a different character and philosophy. Cowley added
more perplexities to love. With the passage of time love also changes its character. Earlier
‘Flesh’ was an important theme in love, but with the age it changes in and that can be
perceived in him now. Everything is inconstant. Incest is now a taboo and now attraction
of flesh withers away. Dr. Johnson emphasizes that the tears of lovers are of great
poetical accounts and it is difficult to be properly comprehended. The readers may read
it again and again to find its proper meaning.

Dr. Johnson finds in Donne’s love poems two souls are combined and mixed and the two
become one. Cowley describes his mistress- bathing wonderful. According to Dr.
Johnson, Cowley may be considered to be the best of metaphysical poets and he had a
great variety of style and sentiment. It ranges from levity to grandeur.

The metaphysical poets used the conceits to serve their purpose. Wit is an important
feature of metaphysical poetry. Metaphysical poetry has more music and much sentiment.
Ordinary readers were not acquainted with this kind of style and use of conceits.

We may conclude with the features of Johnson’s writing that Cowley was a greater poet
than Donne and his style of writing was really remarkable. Cowley is a wonderful poet to
no doubt but it is not fair to comment that in adopting the metaphysical style Cowley
surpassed his predecessors.

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