Some Questions for Johnson
Johnson's "Preface to Shakespeare"
(adapted from A. J. Drake's Teaching Resources)
From "Preface to Shakespeare"
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What test ought to be applied to literary works "of which the excellence is not absolute and definite"? How does Johnson reason in support of this test?
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What alone, according to Johnson, "can please many, and please long"? Does Shakespeare therefore please? Why?
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How does Johnson defend Shakespeare against critics who say it is wrong to mix comedy and tragedy?
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What, according to Johnson, is Shakespeare's "first defect"? Why cannot this fault be extenuated by "the barbarity of his age"?
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How does Johnson reply to those critics who claim that dramatic illusion requires the "unities of time and place"? What indeed are these unities? How does he refute this insistence on the unities?
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What is the exact nature of dramatic illusion, according to Johnson? How exactly is a drama "credited, whenever it moves"? From what does the "delight of a tragedy" proceed?
Extra Discussion Questions
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What do you think of Johnson's explanation of how we can delight in contemplating imitations of objects or events which in themselves--in "real life"--we view with pain or disgust or horror? Compare his explanation of this phenomenon with Aristotle's. Whose, in your opinion, is superior? Why? Are these different explanations logically incompatible?
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Coleridge observes that while watching a play we neither believe nor disbelieve in the reality of the events depicted. Instead, our minds are in a state characterized by a "willing suspension of disbelief." Compare his notion of the dramatic illusion with Johnson's.