Hello, and welcome to you to now this session
of this course on literary criticism.
Today we are looking at one of the iconic
texts of the neoclassical period, preface
to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson.
This, understandably, is a preface written
by Samuel Johnson to one of the additions
of Shakespeare's plays that he had brought
out.
So, Samuel Johnson, as you might be aware
of, he is one of the last important critics
of the neoclassical period.
And it is possible to say that the kind of
criticism that the neoclassical period endosed
that almost becomes obsolete after Johnson's
period.
So, Johnson was in a very important figure
in the neoclassical period, he was someone
who had the power to make or break the career
of contemporary writer.
And, we do know that Johnson had influenced
the literary field quite considerably in terms
of his writings as well as in terms of the
major influence that he had on radically challenging
the system of patronage and which existed
in the English literary critical.
And with his dictionary, which was an important
milestone linguistically as well as in terms
of English literature, we find that Johnson
gave a lot of impetus to contemporary writers
of his period to encourage them to get rewarded
for their own writings through systems which
are, which operated other than through patronage,
through revenues, through royalties from publishing
houses.
So, it was a very-very radical moment that
Johnson initiated.
So, today we are looking at one of these texts,
which is said to have cemented the literary
reputation of Shakespeare forever, not just
in England, but also in the context of World
Literature, so John's begins by telling us
about some of the misconceptions that are
there in terms of literature when we compare
the writings of the ancient detours in comparison
to the writings of the contemporary people.
And he is also aware of the fact that I am
quite critical of the fact that sometimes
ancients are praised over the moderns when
he is rapping to models.
He is talking about contemporary neoclassical
writings.
So, he is aware of this fact that sometimes
the ancients are praised for no reason.
Because simply because they are located in
antiquity, so antiquity, he is aware that
becomes the reason for legitimizing merit
for various reasons.
So, in spite of that, in spite of this awareness,
he is also leading us into this argument that
there are certain writers who also needs to
be rescued from antiquity such as Shakespeare
in this case and he talks about the need to
focus on the literary merit of Shakespeare.
Of course, Shakespeare was up was the kind
of dramatist, the playwright who had produced
box office successes one after the other.
And he had also radically reinvented the grammar
of drama in England as well as in Europe in
the later decades as we have seen.
But situating him as a literary artist was
a task, an entirely different task altogether,
we find Johnson undertaking this task and
completing his at position.
So, this entire work, this preface could be
divided into 3 different parts.
In the first segment, he talks about the general
universal abilities of Shakespeare's works,
the universal capacities of Shakespeare's
works, which made him endearing to different
generations and he is even seen as someone
who had outlived his own century and the focus
is on the various kinds of aesthetic literary
and cultural merits, which made him very popular
during his time and as well as endearing to
the posterity.
In the second section, he focuses on some
of the faults of Shakespeare's right and some
of the flaws which he identifies in Shakespeare's
drama.
And in the final section, he undertakes to
defend one of the major flaws, which is the
violation of immunities.
And we also find that is the first time in
an English critical tradition that a critic
undertakes to defend a writer for violating
the Unity's which were considered as very-very
significant, very-very central to any composition
related to drama.
So, we also need some context to this in terms
of the neoclassical tradition.
So, during the neoclassical period, we understand
that the English writers had trained themselves
to move away considerably from the classical
tradition, but they were also rooted in many
rigid ways in the classical principles.
So, we do find them advocating the need for
a standalone literary critical tradition like
bryden began to do and we also realize that
they find it, they find themselves in a precarious
situation between tradition and the kind of
modern writings that they were encountering
within England.
So, for instance, these are some of the ways
in which they began to depart Dryden, for
instance, he began to glorify tragicomedy,
which was not, which was an absolute misfit
when one takes a classical tradition into
account.
And he had this compelling argument that if
Aristotle had seen our tragedies perhaps he
would have changed his mind.
And we find Johnson in that sense trying to
defend the violation of unities is which was
also seen as a very Cardinal thing in Aristotle
and principles.
And we also find them using English examples
in order to prove this point against vis a
vis, classical tradition.
So, now we begin to enter this text and he
begins with this almost satiric statement
that praises are without reason lavished on
the debt and that the owners due only to excellence
are pay to antiquity is a complain likely
to be always continued by those who being
able to add nothing to truth, hopeful eminence
from the heresies of paradox.
So, you must have noticed that in Driven’s
writings as well as in Johnson writings, keeping
in tune with the typical neoclassical wit
that they were all endowed with, we find the
beginning on a rather sarcastic note on a,
rather satirical note about their own worldviews
and about the ways in which contemporary traditions
have been forged, from that he moves on to
make this statement which was considered radical
then, the great contention of criticism is
to find the faults of the moderns, and the
beauties of the ancients.
While an author is yet living, we estimate
his powers by his worst performance and when
he is dead, we rate them by his best.
So, this is in certain ways and continues
to be true in the critical tradition where
death in certain ways it ensures a certain
kind of permanence within the literary critical
tradition by one is extremely critical about
the writers who continue to write who are
still living.
So, neoclassical period which also had seen
the birth of different kinds of criticisms,
which saw the birth of criticism being brought
closer to the layman and it is said about
that period that was a period when our criticism
was brought to the coffee house from the court.
So, we also see a continuous engagement with
various kinds of texts and lot of people posing
as critics and writing reviews and critical
statements about different works which are
being published then.
And, we also find this tendency of many critics
including Wright and Johnson and such other
big names, they being extremely critical about
the contemporary writers because the standards
that they, because the standards that they
had begun to expect from the English writers
were quite high during that period.
And also there is this infinite focus this
insistent focus on the aspects related to
intellect and wit which also got prioritized
over lot of other things like feelings or
aesthetics.
So, here we fined Johnson taking a middle
path.
And he is quite unlike himself in this entire
set of writing where he is willing to let
go of some of his rigidities, he is willing
to let go of the some of the principles of
classical tradition that he himself believed
in, in order to support and in order to endorse
the aesthetics which had dominated Shakespeare's
writings.
So, from then he talks about what mankind
have long possessed, they have often examined
and compared and if they persist to value
the possession, it is because frequent comparisons
have confirmed in its favor.
He talks about the general tendency of criticism
to base the value of her work on certain things.
Just before at in line 25, he has already
said, but appealing holy to observation experience,
no other tests can be applied than length
of duration and continuance of esteem.
We find that the universal appeal and the
general quality, the general goodness of Shakespeare's
works that he begins to praise that is also
rooted in this length of duration and continuous
of esteem, which had surpassed his own times
which had also outlived the century as very
soon he will also point out.
So, in the productions of genius, nothing
can be styled excellent till it has been compared
with other works of the same kind.
So, it just like Dryden did in his preface
to it, we noticed that there is a competitive
strand which is evident even in Johnson's
criticism, but George also manages to move
away from that comparative mode and he focuses
on historical criticism, which also becomes
a major intervention in literary critical
theories.
And at a later point, we also know that it
becomes, it evolves into a more sophisticated
base, which gets labeled as new historicism.
So, when Johnson is writing preface to Shakespeare,
he is largely employing a mode of historical
criticism, which also takes into account the
modes of production which operated outside
the text.
He takes into account the biographical information
that he had garnered from different sources.
He also evaluates the text in the context
of its production.
So, when Johnson is situating, Shakespeare's
merits , he is not entirely delving into the
text per se, but he is evaluating the text
merit in the context of its production in
the ways in which the text was received.
And he is also looking at the falls in terms
of its dialogue with the audience.
So he begins talking about Shakespeare per
se from line 55, where he identifies Shakespeare
as the poet.
So if you are familiar with classical criticism,
this term, the poet is used to universally
refer to almost unanimously to Houma who was
the poet during the classical times.
So, we find Shakespeare being given the same
kind of title by Johnson and if you remember
in the preface by Dryden, he had referred
to Chaucer also as the point.
Here we find the English critical tradition
emerging as a formidable successor of the
classical tradition, though far removed from
it in various ways as well.
So, this is how Johnson talks about Shakespeare,
the poet of whose works I have undertaken
the revision.
May now begin to assume the dignity of an
ancient and claim the privilege of established
fame and prescriptive veneration.
He has outlived, he has long outlived the
century, the term commonly fixed as the test
of literary merit, we find universality and
a lot of tenets of secular humanism being
enacted over here and very-very practical
terms.
So, as we had noticed from the earlier sessions,
from Sydney onwards, there is a tendency to
situate the literary critical traditional
within that secular humanist traditions.
So here, we find the very fact of writer,
outliving his century of the form out living
his century been taken as the true test of
literary merit.
This also has certain inherent flaws as we
should be examining later on.
But at this moment, it is important to notice
that this universality of treating literature
as something which has the power to stand
the test of time, treating literature as good
literature as something which can only survive
the test of time that is being highlighted
over here.
He also tells us maybe directly in line 75
that the objective is to inquire by what peculiarities
of excellence Shakespeare has gained and kept
the favor of his countrymen.
So, this text at the outset, opens with this
understanding that Shakespeare has outlived
his century, he is certainly popular.
So, now the time is to critically evaluate
this popularity in order to cement his literary
reputation, perhaps forever and that is precisely
what this text achieves also be realized in
the long run.
And he begins with this statement, which has
been oft quoted in most discussions about
Shakespeare.
Nothing can please many and please long but
just representations of general nature.
This quality of pleasing the quality of being
popular across generations across decades
is now seen as a true yardstick for measuring
literary merit.
So, we know that this has been contended in
the later times by a lot of other interventions
where we also know that the popularity or
outliving one century is not a natural given.
It is not something which happens automatically.
It is also aided by a lot of other processes,
which includes race class region and many
other kinds of similar locations.
So, here at the outset, Johnson, also because,
you know, this kind of criticism is still
in its infancy stages.
He is being very-very reverential of this
fact that Shakespeare has managed to outlive
his century and his continue to please many,
if you look at the statistics of the performance
of Shakespeare's plays even throughout the
neoclassical transition.
New classical tradition, in fact, was very
hostile to most of the other kinds of writings
which are prevalent in England until that
point of time.
But, we find that even during the new classical
tradition, Shakespeare's plays and the many
versions and the many performances of the,
of his plays they continue to be extremely
relevant and driving himself, he had attempted
a revision of one of Shakespeare's plays Antony
and Cleopatra.
So, we find this engagement with Shakespeare
particularly compelling when it comes to the
neoclassical period.
And a Johnson is very-very lavish in his praise
of Shakespeare.
But in the second part, when he begins to
examine the faults, the flaws of Shakespeare's
writings, we find that he undertakes a very
balanced outlook as well that makes sure Johnson's
criticism more credible and more relevant,
which is why this is also seen as one of the
texts that again has outlived the century
and has become a seminal in our understandings
of the shaping of English literary critical
tradition.
So, in between lines 85 and 90, he goes on
to state.
Shakespeare is above all writers, at least
above all modern writers, the poet of nature,
the poet that upholds up to his read as a
faithful mirror of manners and of life.
Many of the observations that we find over
here, we find that they also in course of
time, they become general observations about
literature's itself about the function of
literature, about the universality of literature,
about what is expected of good literature
when the readers are encountering that.
So that inherent goodness of literature, the
inherent universality of literature, the need
to stay within the moral frameworks, all these
things are being articulated in this preface,
just the way it was articulated in Dryden
preface to the fable to (())(15:56) as well.
So, look at these statements being made by
Johnson which also tells us about some of
the common sensical things that critical tradition
has inherited in terms of understanding literature,
in terms of evaluating literature, they are
the genuine progeny of common humanity, so
to the world will always apply and observation
will always fine.
His 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.
And the writings of other poets, it characters
too often and individually in those of Shakespeare,
it is commonly a species.
You have must have heard a number of critical
observations about the universality of Shakespeare's
writings, the universality of Shakespeare's
characters, how they are not really individuals,
but they are just types and you could find
you could relocate those characters, you could
relocate those narratives into any setting,
they will continue to make sense but also
accounts to the many revisions of Shakespeare's
plays which have been undertaken in different
languages and different context, different
cultural context and also the different (())(17:03)
into other players, into other stories, into
other visual images, into other cinematic
expressions, et cetera.
So, here we find that some of the observations
in fact, most of the observations that Johnson
makes over here, they go on to become universal
tenants, not just about Shakespeare's works,
but about good literature, good literature,
which is universal and has the power to please
many across decades, across generations.
And here, one also needs to be attentive to
the way in which how Johnson entirely overlooks
the specificity of the particular productions
within which Shakespeare's box are also located
here.
As you know, as a as an aside, in you all
to remind you of the post-colonial readings
of Shakespeare's works were tempest is seen
as a colonial product.
And that needs a different kind of our critical
tool altogether, different critical perception
altogether.
But here what Johnson manages to do is to
situate someone like Shakespeare as a universal
writer.
In that process, he is also managing to locate
English literary critical tradition as a universal
thing as a universal category which caters
to cultures and men and women across generations
and across cultures, which essentially also
becomes one of the beaters in the colonial
agenda where English literature is literally
being promoted, in English literature is being
sold literally to the different colonies in
as the kind of literature as a kind of universal
literature, which also has the power to modify
human behavior.
And to essentially transform a society into
a more gentle and more sophisticated one with
good refined thinking and good set of mind
skills.
So, that is a debate that we should not be
entering into at this moment.
So, coming back to this work, we find that
in the preface, Johnson does not find the
need to anchor himself on any classical tradition.
On the contrary, he is able to identify as
well as elevate Shakespeare as someone who
has the power to stand all by himself and
by extension, the critical tradition of English
literature itself is being invested with the
power to stand all by itself.
In the following section, we shall be looking
at how Johnson identifies particular kinds
of qualities in Shakespeare's writing, which
by extension also becomes a way in which English
literary critical tradition, this literary
tradition itself becomes qualified.
So, we shall continue to look at the remaining
sections in the following session.
Thank you for your attention and I look forward
to seeing you in the next class.
