Alternate question: Comment on Samuel Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare.
Shakespeare endures. Though four hundred-odd years and countless playwrights have come and gone, the works William Shakespeare continue to enthrall us. Every student studies him. Some love him; many hate him. Still, all know him. Outside the classroom, too, Shakespeare continues to shape the culture of the western world. His plays grace the stage each season, with such diverse company as Sophocles and Jeff Goode. They are produced in every imaginable context. Critics continue to analyze their facets. Indeed, critics dedicate tomes to critiquing their peers’ observations of his works.
Each year, a new crop of his plays are, with a few intermittent exceptions, butchered by Hollywood. Surprisingly enough, however, those films continue to draw crowds. Surely, Shakespeare’s endurance attests to his literary merit. Even in the eighteenth century, the Bard’s votaries defended his worth by citing the longevity of his appeal. Dr. Samuel Johnson, however, warned against such short-sighted estimations of greatness by reminding his contemporaries that all too often “praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and…the honours do only to excellence are paid to antiquity” (Johnson 8).
Still, Johnson proclaims Shakespeare’s merits. With his publication The Plays of William Shakespeare in 1765, Johnson made his contribution to the history of Shakespearean criticism. As with much of his work, Johnson left his own indelible mark on the field. His edition remains relevant today because it continues to affect the way critics approach Shakespeare. Johnson was not the first editor of Shakespeare; nor was he by any means the last. Though he defended the methodology of his edition itself quite well, its legacy in modern literature is, on the whole, indirect.