What is the importance of Samuel Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare?

Samuel Johnson wrote his Preface to Shakespeare for his annotated edition of The Works of William Shakespeare, which Johnson published in 1765. Since then, Johnson's preface has been celebrated as an astute work of literary criticism and valued for its insights into understanding Shakespeare. While contemporary readers acknowledge Johnson's prejudices, they still value his methodology and central conclusion.

What sets Johnson's methodology apart from others of his time, setting a precedent for literary criticism throughout the ages, is comparison. By comparing Shakespeare to other playwrights, both classic and contemporary for Johnson's time, Johnson was able to analyze Shakespeare in a new way. In particular, he was able to distinguish what Shakespeare had borrowed and what he had created himself. This method of intense research and comparison has become a model for all literary criticism today.

One of Johnson's most influential conclusions is that Shakespeare is timelessly valuable because of his ability to understand and characterize human nature. Johnson's conclusion about Shakespeare's worth is best summed up in his following statement: "This therefore is the praise of Shakespeare, that his drama is the mirror of life." What he means in saying this is that Shakespeare's characters mirror real people through their real thoughts, real feelings, and real actions. As Johnson further states, Shakespeare's characters are not limited to the time in which they were created or by their cultures or ethnicities because "they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find." Hence, according to Johnson, Shakespeare's value lies in the fact that he created genuine human characters that all of humanity can relate to across the ages.

What is the summary of Samuel Johnson's preface to Shakespeare?

Samuel Johnson’s 1765 Preface to Shakespeare fits into a tradition of presenting Shakespeare’s plays in modernized form.

Johnson’s Preface contains echoes of neo-classical sentiments, especially in his application of mimetic values, and in his axiom that “nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of human nature.”  Johnson also states that “it is always a writer’s duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independent on time or place.”  The key points of Johnson’s treatise are:

Shakespeare is the foremost of English writers.  He is “the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life.”

Shakespeare’s characters are universal.  “They are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find.”

Shakespeare’s work transcends genre.  His “plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions  of a distinct kind; 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. . .  .”

Shakespeare’s plays follow miscuit utile dulce:  “The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.”

Shakespeare polished a crude form.  “He found the English stage in a state of the utmost rudeness,” but his talent in developing character and dialogue brought the drama forward so that “in some of his happier scenes” we are carried “to the utmost height.”

Shakespeare does have several faults.  “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.”  “To the unities of time and place he has shown no regard.”

How can one analyse Dr. Samuel Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare?

Perhaps one of the best ways to analyze Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare (1765) is to trace Johnson's arguments that Shakespeare's plays stand "the test of time."  Johnson, who was an Aristotelian by nature, believed Aristotle's arguments in the Poetics that literature (in Aristotle's case, plays) can only be successful and universally understood if it mirrored life. Aristotle used the Greek word mimesis to describe a play's ability to imitate life, arguing that literature reflect real life and not the world of fantasy.  Johnson agreed.

In the Preface, for example, Johnson noted that Shakespeare's characters

. . . act and speak by . . . those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion. (p. 62)

The argument here is that Shakespeare's characters and their actions mirror the life of men; in fact, in another section of the Preface, Johnson observes that Shakespeare's characters are men rather than heroes, and they appeal to readers of all ages precisely because readers identify with these characters' humanity.

This discussion leads to a more specific way to analyze the Preface--to focus on Johnson's comments about Shakespeare's characterization.  If we take the Preface in its entirety, we see that Johnson discusses Shakespeare's plots, language, structure, but more than anything else, Johnson reserves the mass of his comments for how Shakespeare creates characters and their interactions to reflect the universal human experience:

His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated.

Johnson would argue that readers of all times are able to see themselves in Shakespeare's characters simply because we recognize those "passions and principles" in ourselves.  

An analysis of Johnson's views on Shakespeare's articulation of character is a useful way to understand the Preface as a whole.