Samuel johnson on shakespeare. Samuel Johnson 2022-10-17
Samuel johnson on shakespeare Rating:
5,1/10
657
reviews
Samuel Johnson, often considered one of the greatest literary critics in English history, had a deep appreciation for the works of William Shakespeare. In his 1765 publication "The Plays of William Shakespeare," Johnson wrote extensively about the Bard and his enduring impact on literature.
One of the main points that Johnson made about Shakespeare was the universality of his themes. Johnson argued that Shakespeare's plays explored universal human experiences and emotions, making them relevant and relatable to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. He wrote that "Shakespeare has, without doubt, given more sensible representations of general nature, and exhibited more traits of universal humanity, than any other writer."
Johnson also praised Shakespeare's exceptional skill as a dramatist, noting his ability to create complex and fully realized characters. He wrote that "Shakespeare's persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion."
Another aspect of Shakespeare's work that Johnson admired was the poetic beauty and richness of his language. Johnson wrote that Shakespeare's use of language was "a stream of easy and unaffected eloquence, which flows with the facility of nature, and seems as unconscious of art as light and air."
Overall, Johnson's assessment of Shakespeare was overwhelmingly positive, and he saw the playwright as a towering figure in the literary world. Johnson wrote that "To be sure of Shakespeare, is to be sure of the highest pleasure the drama can give." His appreciation for Shakespeare's works has helped to cement the playwright's reputation as one of the greatest writers in the English language.
Samuel Johnson on Shakespeare : Johnson, Samuel, 1709
Shakespeare wasn't perfect, and people tend to forget that. Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist, and the laborious collator some unlucky moment frolicks in conjecture. But a history might be continued through many plays; as it had no plan, it had no limits. The necessity of observing the unities of time and place arises from the supposed necessity of making the drama credible. Characters thus ample and general were not easily discriminated and preserved, yet perhaps no poet ever kept his personages more distinct from each other. Theobald a hint that a line was lost, endeavours to supply it thus. Warburton for distinguishing the genuine from the spurious plays.
So willingly does the world support those who solicite favour, against those who command reverence; and so easily is he praised, whom no man can envy. It were to be wished that all would endeavour to imitate his modesty who have not been able to surpass his knowledge. It may be observed, that the oldest poets of many nations preserve their reputation, and that the following generations of wit, after a short celebrity, sink into oblivion. 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 in the mire. There is however proof enough that he was a very diligent reader, nor was our language then so indigent of books, but that he might very liberally indulge his curiosity without excursion into foreign literature.
The unities of action and place are sufficiently preserved. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write essays for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography After nine years of work, people in 1755 published his preeminent Dictionary of the English Language, bringing him popularity and success until the completion of the After a series of illnesses, Johnson died on the evening; people buried his body in Westminster abbey. Of the rest, to part I have given the highest approbation, by inserting the offered reading in the text; part I have left to the judgment of the reader, as doubtful, though specious; and part I have censured without reserve, but I am sure without bitterness of malice, and, I hope, without wantonness of insult. The edition came to nothing; the Tonson family threatened a legal battle over the copyright and forced bookseller Edward Cave to abandon the project. Johnson says that Shakespeare did not spare a single quibble that would come to his way and he would even forget to pursue his own course of action in his drama no matter how profound and grave it is, if he found a quibble.
I might easily have accumulated a mass of seeming learning upon easy scenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that, where nothing was necessary, nothing has been done, or that, where others have said enough, I have said no more. Finished: Johnson is a man I want to know better. Of the four issues the journal publishes each year, at least one is a special issue that addresses a topic of contemporary concern. The stories, which we now find only in remoter authours, were in his time accessible and familliar. In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his labour is more.
In contemplation we easily contract the time of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we only see their imitation. The notes which I have borrowed or written are either illustrative, by which difficulties are explained; or judicial, by which faults and beauties are remarked; or emendatory, by which depravations are corrected. The accidental compositions of heterogeneous modes are dissolved by the chance which combined them; but the uniform simplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increase, nor suffers decay. I have rescued many lines from the violations of temerity, and secured many scenes from the inroads of correction. He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of all dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate-house for that which the senate-house would certainly have afforded him. There were, however, some tedious histories of various editions of Shakespeare's works - not worth reading in my opinion.
A scheme might easily have been formed, to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl. But, by inserting his emendations, whether invented or borrowed, into the page, without any notice of varying copies, he has appropriated the labour of his predecessors, and made his own edition of little authority. To bring a lover, a lady and a rival into the fable; to entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex them with oppositions of interest, and harrass them with violence of desires inconsistent with each other; to make them meet in rapture and part in agony; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy and outrageous sorrow; to distress them as nothing human ever was distressed; to deliver them as nothing human ever was delivered, is the business of a modern dramatist. The stile of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical, perplexed and obscure; his works were transcribed for the players by those who may be supposed to have seldom understood them; they were transmitted by copiers equally unskilful, who still multiplied errours; they were perhaps sometimes mutilated by the actors, for the sake of shortening the speeches; and were at last printed without correction of the press. This is exquisitely imagined. Shakespeare had no such advantage; he came to London a needy adventurer, and lived for a time by very mean employments. All those enquiries, which from that time that human nature became the fashionable study, have been made sometimes with nice discernment, but often with idle subtilty, were yet unattempted.
In establishing the text he was the first to argue that the First Folio had all the authority of the later folio tradition though his practice did not always live up to his theory, and he usually worked with the textus receptus, or received text. He has speeches, perhaps sometimes scenes, which have all the delicacy of Rowe, without his effeminacy. It looks at Johnson's studies on Shakespeare in their 18th century context and analyzes their significance and achievement. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. His confidence indeed, both in himself and others, was too great; he supposes all to be right that was done by Pope and Theobald; he seems not to suspect a critick of fallibility, and it was but reasonable that he should claim what he so liberally granted. There must, however, have been always some modes of gayety preferable to others, and a writer ought to chuse the best. He no sooner begins to move, than he counteracts himself; and terrour and pity, as they are rising in the mind, are checked and blasted by sudden frigidity.
The reverence due to writings that have long subsisted arises therefore not from any credulous confidence in the superior wisdom of past ages, or gloomy persuasion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is the consequence of acknowledged and indubitable positions, that what has been longest known has been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood. The opinions prevalent in one age, as truths above the reach of controversy, are confuted and rejected in another, and rise again to reception in remoter times. This problem was compounded by careless editors deeming difficult words as incorrect and changing them in later editions. Whoever considers the revolutions of learning, and the various questions of greater or less importance, upon which wit and reason have exercised their powers, must lament the unsuccessfulness of enquiry, and the slow advances of truth, when he reflects, that great part of the labour of every writer is only the destruction of those that went before him. Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It is not to be endured.
Samuel Johnson's Views of Shakespeare's use of Quibbles
Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life. It is objected, that by this change of scenes the passions are interrupted in their progression, and that the principal event, being not advanced by a due gradation of preparatory incidents, wants at last the power to move, which constitutes the perfection of dramatick poetry. Warburton has admitted after some other Editor, will amend the fault. Fiction cannot move so much, but that the attention may be easily transferred; and though it must be allowed that pleasing melancholy be sometimes interrupted by unwelcome levity, yet let it be considered likewise, that melancholy is often not pleasing, and that the disturbance of one man may be the relief of another; that different auditors have different habitudes; and that, upon the whole, all pleasure consists in variety. The mind revolts from evident falsehood, and fiction loses its force when it departs from the resemblance of reality. Of his notes, I have commonly rejected those, against which the general voice of the publick has exclaimed, or which their own incongruity immediately condemns, and which, I suppose, the authour himself would desire to be forgotten. Of these lines neither the sense nor occasion is very evident.
Johnson on Shakespeare : essays and notes : Johnson, Samuel, 1709
It is therefore evident, that the action is not supposed to be real, and it follows that between the acts a longer or shorter time may be allowed to pass, and that no more account of space or duration is to be taken by the auditor of a drama, than by the reader of a narrative, before whom may pass in an hour the life of a hero, or the revolutions of an empire. For his other deviations from the art of writing, I resign him to critical justice, without making any other demand in his favour, than that which must be indulged to all human excellence; that his virtues be rated with his failings: But, from the censure which this irregularity may bring upon him, I shall, with due reverence to that learning which I must oppose, adventure to try how I can defend him. It is seldom that authours, though more studious of fame than Shakespeare, rise much above the standard of their own age; to add a little of what is best will always be sufficient for present praise, and those who find themselves exalted into fame, are willing to credit their encomiasts, and to spare the labour of contending with themselves. Respect is due to high place, tenderness to living reputation, and veneration to genius and learning; but he cannot be justly offended at that liberty of which he has himself so frequently given an example, nor very solicitous what is thought of notes, which he ought never to have considered as part of his serious employments, and which, I suppose, since the ardour of composition is remitted, he no longer numbers among his happy effusions. Upon this caution I now congratulate myself, for every day encreases my doubt of my emendations. Many works of genius and learning have been performed in states of life, that appear very little favourable to thought or to enquiry; so many, that he who considers them is inclined to think that he sees enterprise and perseverance predominating over all external agency, and bidding help and hindrance vanish before them.
