Dr. Johnson wrote no
critical treatise but he influenced his age no more than any other English
critics of the past. His critical work consists of a dozen papers in “The
Rambler”, the remarks on poetry in “Rasselas”, “The Preface to the Plays of
Shakespeare” and “The Lives of the Poets”. According to him, criticism should
rest on surer foundations.
There
were the rules of the ancients and those of the neo – classicists. But they
were subject to change for ‘every new genius produces some innovation which
subverts
the rules which the practice of
foregoing authors had established’ says Dr.Johnson. They could be divided into
two categories – the fundamental and indispensable, based on nature and reason;
and those that were ‘merely useful and
convenient’, deriving their force from earlier practice. No writer could bypass
the former. But he was free to follow or not to follow the latter. To know
whether a work has followed these essential principles or not, Johnson subjects
the work to the test of time. The general and continued approbation of mankind
is the best evidence of its merit. No doubt, Johnson is a neo – classical
critic but never stands for a blind reverence to authority, ancient or modern.
He is for liberty.
Historical Approach:
Literature
according to Johnson is not written to a fixed pattern but is conditioned by
the writer’s age and environment. Though Dryden and Pope have attributed the
success of writers to the genius of the age, Johnson for the first time makes
it an essential principle of criticism. To judge rightly of an author, he says
that we must transfer ourselves to his time and examine what were the wants of
his contemporaries and what were his means of supplying them. The historical
estimate is an important factor in the real estimate of an author. George
Watson says that Johnson is an unambiguously historical critic and the true
father of historical criticism in English.
In
his “Life of Milton” Johnson writes about poetry. He says that poetry is the
art of uniting pleasure with truth by calling imagination to the help of
reason. In this definition he combines both the nature of the poetic art (that
it imitates truth or life) and its function (that it affords pleasure). In the
imitation of truth it is guided by reason and in affording pleasure by
imagination. Johnson says in “The Preface to Shakespeare” that the end of
writing is to instruct and the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing. The
truth of poetry is universal truth and it has a universal appeal. It ‘pleases
many and pleases long!’
On kinds
of Poetry, Versification and Poetic Diction
Following
the French neoclassicists, Johnson considers the epic superior to all other
forms of verse. Epic poetry teaches the most important truths by the most
pleasing percepts. Among the verse forms the Pastoral and the Pindaric ode made
the least impression on him. According to him, these forms of poetry may not
please the readers of the modern age. As regards the versification, he is for
regular metres and rhymes. Since metre or rhythm alone is insufficient to make
a verse musical, he prefers the heroic couplet to all other stanza forms. He
also defines the language of poetry. ‘Not all words are fit for poetry’, says
Johnson. ‘Words too familiar or too remote’ defeat the purpose of a poet. Hence
he excludes words of both these categories from the language of poetry. He says
that ‘a simile to be perfect must both illustrate and ennoble the subject’.
On Drama:
Johnson
considers the different aspects of the dramatic art: its nature, the unities,
dramatic pleasure and the tragic - comedy. Drama must hold up ‘a faithful
mirror of manners and of life’. It should present ‘human sentiments in human
language’. A great play is not a story of a few men in one particular age, but
through them, of all men in all ages: the actions, thoughts and passions.
Among
the three unities, Johnson says that only the unity of action is justified by
reason, the union of the events of the plot into an inseparable whole. He
accounts for the pleasure in drama as the natural human pleasure in imitation.
He follows a very realistic approach on the tragic - comedy. There are two natural
grounds to justify it: the alternation
of pleasure and pain in a play pleases by its variety and it reflects life.
Practical Criticism:
Johnson
is the first English critic to attempt a systematic work in the field of
practical criticism. His “Lives of the Poets” is a biographical - cum -
critical account of fifty two poets from Cowley to Gray covering a period of a
hundred years. It is as much a history of the English poetry of this period as
a work of criticism.
The Value of his Criticism:
Johnson
is the last great critic of the neo - classical school. He has a code of
conduct both for the writer and the critic. In his historical approach to an
author’s work he questions the validity of the same rules for all ages. He
pleads for suitable adjustments in them
in the light of the author’s environment. His other test of excellence – ‘the
general and continued approbation of mankind’ (which he applies to Shakespeare)
also disposes of the necessity of rules.
Neo
– Classicism stresses the means – the rules, as they are called – no less than
the end. Johnson’s test stresses the end only.
Criticism
According
to Dryden, a critic has to understand that a writer writes to his own age and
people of which he himself is a product. He advocates a close study of the
ancient models not to imitate them blindly as a thorough going neo-classicist
would do but to recapture their magic to treat them as a torch to enlighten our
own passage. It is the spirit of the classics that matters more than their rules.
Yet these rules are not without their value, for without rules, there can be no
art. Besides invention (the disposition of a work), there are two other parts
of a work – design (or arrangement) and expression. Dryden mentions the
appropriate rules laid down by Aristotle. But it is not the observance of rules
that makes a work great but its capacity to delight and transport. It is not
the business of criticism to detect petty faults but to discover those great
beauties that make it immortal.
The Value of his
criticism
Dryden’s
criticism is partly a restatement of the precepts of Aristotle, partly a plea
for French neo-classicism and partly a deviation from both under the influence
of Longinus and Saint Evremond. From Aristotle he learnt a respect for rules.
French Neo-classicism taught him to prefer the epic to tragedy, to insist on a
moral in it and many of the things. And to Longinus and Saint Evremond he owed
a respect for his own judgement.
Dryden is a liberal classicist who
would adjust the rules of the ancients to the genius of the age, to which a
poet writes.
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