Samuel Johnson and John Keats both have work on criticizing Shakespeare. Both filled with an observation of how he wrote. Samuel Johnson praises Shakespeare’s work before he criticizes it. He praises Shakespeare by saying “[he] is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature, the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life” (Johnson, 1342). He is saying that Shakespeare reflects things as they are empirically, by observation, he shows life as it is by reflecting nature. Johnson says that Shakespeare’s characters are different from other writers characters. They are not uniformed by customs, they are unique. He has no heroes or saints in any of his work, everyone is equally evil or bad in different ways though some characters are less evil than others. Although all his works are tragedy, they still are all very distinct from one another. They all tell a different story; but they all end the same, in death. Johnson says that Shakespeare’s drama is a mirror of life (Johnson, 1343).
Like other poets, Shakespeare has his moments of fault. As his first fault it seems that he writes without a moral purpose (Johnson, 1344). He has no certain distinction of the good and evil in his plays. He leaves it to the readers to decide who is good or bad and who is wrong or right. When reading Shakespeare’s plays it could seem as if everyone is the evil or bad person of the story. Some characters are more morally wrong than the others, but Johnson said that he writes without a moral purpose. Some people may interpret that as Shakespeare does not affect or change the way someone thinks or lives their life. It does not teach a lesson or give you anything to learn from it. Shakespeare’s plots are “often so loosely formed that very slight consideration may improve them” (Johnson, 1344). Johnson means that with even a slight change in the plot, the outcomes of the play and how it is interpreted could be changed drastically. Shakespeare plots have a lot of drama going on in just one story, based on multiple things. If he put more specific details on certain scenes like more story to them, then maybe they would have been better than they are now.
Samuel Johnson wrote in the time of the Enlightenment, during the 18th century; Shakespeare wrote in the early 17th century. The Enlightenment was an age of reason, it represented the way things came together like science and math and knowledge and the universe. It was a point of unity in everything. During this time Johnson had to view things uniformly, so he would have the question of what is the lesson of creative works. Which leads to him saying Shakespeare had no moral purpose because that’s something that he had around him when he was writing.
John Keats does not have much to say about Shakespeare and his works, but he does give a little criticism and a small praise. Keats called Shakespeare “a Man of Achievement especially in Literature” (Keats, 1927). He was well known and many people read his works. Keats critiqued the way Shakespeare wrote by saying he possessed so much negative capability (Keats, 1927). Meaning Shakespeare wrote with any fact or reason. Keats felt as if Shakespeare just wrote stories of uncertainty and mystery and did not care if they flowed or left questions unanswered.
John Keats wrote as second generation of the Romantic Era. It is difficult to actually say when the era started so it is just an assumption that it was the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. They used a lot of nature and perception in their works and how people see the world around them. Unlike the Enlightenment era, the Romantic era was not seen as universal. They had a way of innate thinking, that reason is something that is part of being human. Which explains why he critiqued Shakespeare on not using fact or reason in his work. John Keats and Samuel Johnson both had positive and negative things to say about Shakespeare. Although Samuel Johnson goes more into detail with his criticism, they both agree on something. Keats and Johnson both mentioned that Shakespeare writes without meaning, reason, or purpose. His works are still praised for the way they were wrote, its just that they cannot really learn anything from it.
Works Cited
- Johnson, Samuel. “The Preface to Shakespeare.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, by Stephen Greenblatt, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013, pp. 1340–1350.
- Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, by Stephen Greenblatt, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013, pp. 1900–1901.
- Keats, John. “To George and Thomas Keats.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, by Stephen Greenblatt, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013, pp. 1926–1927.
