What makes William Shakespeare a great writer according to Samuel Johnson?

 According to some biographies, Samuel Johnson began reading Shakespeare since he was a little boy .He’s probably the most prominent writer of the 18th century and the most valued. He developed a fascination for Shakespeare’s plays that continued throughout his life. He knew Shakespeare so well and so deeply that he was able to criticize him with the same devotion as he praised him. 

Johnson wrote A preface to Shakespeare in 1765. He decided to take this work because he thought that there were a lot of problems with previous editions of Shakespeare’s plays, and he believed that a new version written by him would correct those problems.A preface to Shakespeare is divided into two sections that define with exactitude the duality in Johnson’s words. In the first part he talks about the natural excellence that Shakespeare possessed and the uncommon gift that was given to him as a writer. Johnson criticizes his contemporaries in this part, since he thinks that they don’t take into consideration old writings because they think they’re no longer in fashion for the time. Johnson, on the contrary, believed that if something is capable to remain for a long time as true and authentic, because these are the reasons of why these works gain recognition through time without altering what it is the fashion of the time. These said works remain genuine and incomparable against other type of works that most of the times are not even worth of being read.

Someone like Shakespeare remains through time because he became a classic, he was no longer in fashion but his work transcended everything else. Johnson affirms that in comparison with some of his contemporaries, Shakespeare created something totally new at the same time that he portrayed human nature with such correctness that when people read it, they can easily identify with any of the characters because they find in them the same actions and reactions that they would have if they were in the same situation.

The poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find. (Johnson, 8)

However, Johnson also says that people change their minds constantly due to different reasons such as fashion, time, personal problems, etc., and this causes a lot of troubles to writers who intend to touch people’s hearts. Writers sometimes do anything to catch the readers’ attention, and this sometimes provokes a wrong impression of readers and writers end by doing a bad work. Shakespeare, in return, is always agreeable to the reader, regardless the time or place. One can always understand his characters and find oneself in the text.  But Johnson also criticizes that what his contemporaries did, and even nowadays they still do it, is that they tended to exaggerate characters and at the same time, the stories. Characters are mostly heroes, people with great loves, great opportunities, awful enemies, extreme situations, and all these things that common people are never going to feel or live.

This is one of the reasons that Johnson uses to explain why people enjoyed reading Shakespeare, mostly because reading him means learning something. He always had something to teacher you, whether conscious or unconscious of it, his writings always had something fresh and new, something to analyze more deeply and you find yourself immersed in the text thinking of how it will end, what it is next.

Johnson says that Shakespeare used the words, with “natural language” and “simple” he mean that it seems that when Shakespeare was writing words simply came out with no difficulty, probably he didn’t even have to think so much because the situation arranged itself. I have the feeling that he didn’t have to think too much in dialogues and characters, he simply pictured everything in his mind and the writing did the work. He was able to depict reality without altering what people knew, and even when Shakespeare used complex language it was understandable enough. Shakespeare is an excellent writer is not because of his fiction but because he was able to represent life and to portray us as we really are.

These are the most important merits of Shakespeare which maked him as a great writer.