Dr Johnson's critical assumptions in the preface to Shakespeare: an essay in descriptive method

Abstract

"His criticism may be considered as general or occasional. In his general precepts, which depend upon the nature of things and the structure of the human mind, he may doubtlessly be safely recommended to the confidence of the reader: but his occasional and particular positions were sometimes interested, sometimes negligent, and sometimes capricious." With certain qualifications, it would be the opinion of those critics who share a great admiration of the man that this statement might well have been made of Johnson himself. There are those, however, whose esteem of Johnson is perhaps not so great. One thus finds Alan Tate writing: "One is constantly impressed by Johnson's consistency of point of view, over the long pull of his self-dedication to letters. There is seldom either consistency or precision in his particular judgements and definitions -- a defect that perhaps accounts negatively for his greatness as a critic: the perpetual reformulation of his standards, with his eye on the poetry, has done much to keep eighteenth century verse alive in our day. His theories (if his ideas ever reach that level of logical abstraction) are perhaps too simple for our taste and too improvised; but his reading is disciplined and acute." Tate is eager to perpetuate the notion of Johnson as a critic with a massive common sense and little more, an imputation which Johnson would not only resent, but dismiss as short-sighted. Intro., p. 1.