Discover why Samuel Johnson's dictionary, Shakespeare preface, and critical essays made him the true father of English literary criticism. A simple guide.
Samuel Johnson is one of the most important people in the history of English literature. He was a writer, a thinker, and a critic. He lived in the 1700s in England. But the work he did back then still matters today.
You might be wondering why. Why should we care about someone who lived over 250 years ago? The answer is simple. Johnson changed the way people read and talk about books. He helped create the rules and ideas that we still use when we talk about good writing. He did not just write books. He told people how to think about books.
This article will explain who Samuel Johnson was, what he did, and why his work is so important to English literary criticism.
Who Was Samuel Johnson?
Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 in Lichfield, England. His family did not have a lot of money. His father ran a small bookshop. Growing up around books helped Johnson fall in love with reading and learning from a very young age.
He went to Oxford University but had to leave because he could not afford to stay. Even so, he kept reading and kept learning on his own. He moved to London and worked as a writer. He wrote essays, poems, biographies, and reviews. He worked very hard, often for very little money.
Johnson became one of the most respected thinkers of his time. He was known for being very smart, very honest, and very direct. He did not sugarcoat things. If he thought a piece of writing was bad, he said so. If he thought it was good, he explained exactly why.
He died in 1784, leaving behind a body of work that changed English literature forever.
What Is Literary Criticism?
Before we go deeper into Johnson's work, it helps to understand what literary criticism actually means.
Literary criticism is when someone reads a piece of writing and then carefully thinks about it. A critic asks questions like: Is this writing good? Why or why not? What is the writer trying to say? Does the writing do its job well?
Literary criticism is not just about saying you liked a book or did not like it. It goes deeper. It looks at the words, the ideas, the structure, and the meaning behind a piece of writing. A good critic helps readers understand a text better. A great critic helps people understand what makes writing great.
Before Samuel Johnson, not many people in England were doing this kind of careful, thoughtful analysis of literature. Johnson helped make literary criticism into a serious and respected field.
Johnson's Dictionary: More Than Just Words
One of Samuel Johnson's biggest achievements was his Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755. This was not the first English dictionary, but it was the most detailed and most careful one that had ever been made.
Johnson worked on it for nine years, mostly alone. He read thousands of books and picked out sentences that showed how words were actually used. He did not just give definitions. He gave real examples from real writers like Shakespeare, John Milton, and Francis Bacon.
Why does this matter for literary criticism?
Because the dictionary showed that the English language had a history. It showed that words had meaning and that those meanings mattered. Johnson was saying that writing should be judged by how well it uses language. He was setting a standard.
His dictionary also showed that great writing from the past was worth studying. He used famous literary quotes to explain everyday words. This helped people see that literature was not just entertainment. It was a record of how people thought and spoke. It had real value.
By taking language so seriously, Johnson laid the groundwork for critics to take literature seriously too.
The Lives of the Poets: A New Way to Talk About Writers
One of Johnson's most famous works is a collection called Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, often just called Lives of the Poets. He wrote this between 1779 and 1781. It was a series of short biographies and critical essays about 52 English poets.
This was something new. Before Johnson, people sometimes wrote about poets. But they usually just praised them or told stories about their lives. Johnson did something different. He looked carefully at the actual poems. He judged them. He pointed out what worked and what did not.
He was not afraid to criticize even the most famous writers. He said kind things about John Dryden and Alexander Pope. But he also pointed out their weaknesses. He criticized John Milton's Paradise Lost for some of its choices, even though Milton was widely considered a genius.
This kind of honest, detailed literary evaluation was new. Johnson was not just celebrating writers. He was analyzing them. He was asking hard questions. He was setting standards for what good poetry should look and feel like.
This approach became a model for future critics. Johnson showed that it was possible to deeply respect a writer and still point out their flaws. That balance is at the heart of good literary criticism.
Johnson and Shakespeare: Bringing the Bard to Everyone
Samuel Johnson also wrote a very important preface to his edition of Shakespeare's plays, published in 1765. This preface is one of the most celebrated pieces of literary criticism in the English language.
At the time, Shakespeare was admired by many people, but not everyone agreed on why. Some critics said Shakespeare broke too many rules. He mixed comedy and tragedy. He did not follow the classical Greek and Roman models that educated people thought all great drama should follow.
Johnson pushed back on this. He said that Shakespeare was great not because he followed rules, but because he wrote about real human life. Johnson argued that literature should be judged by how truthfully it shows human experience, not by whether it follows old rules.
This was a big idea. Johnson was saying that the goal of great writing is to reflect life as it really is. He was putting the focus on truth, on human nature, and on the reader's experience. This became a central idea in literary criticism that is still used today.
Johnson also defended Shakespeare's mixing of comedy and tragedy. He said that real life is full of both funny moments and sad moments. Why should plays be any different? This argument helped people understand Shakespeare better and made it easier for later writers to experiment with mixing different styles.
By defending Shakespeare in this way, Johnson helped save the reputation of the greatest writer in the English language. And he did it using smart, clear critical thinking.
Johnson's Critical Standards: What He Looked For
Johnson had a set of values that he used when judging literature. These values are still very useful today.
Truth to human nature. Johnson believed that great writing should show real human feelings and experiences. A story that felt fake or forced was not good writing, no matter how clever it sounded.
Moral value. Johnson believed that literature should be useful. It should teach people something. It should help them live better lives. He did not think writing was just for entertainment. He thought it had a responsibility to make readers better people.
Clarity and good use of language. Johnson believed in writing that was clear and direct. He did not like writing that was too flowery or too complicated just to sound smart. Good writing should be easy to understand without losing its depth.
Lasting appeal. Johnson believed that great literature should stand the test of time. He said that if a work had been loved and respected for many years, that was a sign it had real value. This is why he often looked back at older writers when he made his judgments.
These standards gave literary criticism a solid base. They were not just opinions. They were principles. And they helped turn criticism from a casual activity into something more thoughtful and structured.
The Rambler and The Idler: Criticism in Everyday Language
Johnson also wrote two essay series, called The Rambler and The Idler. These were published in newspapers during the 1750s. They were essays on all kinds of topics, including literature, writing, and the role of the critic.
What made these essays special was that Johnson wrote them for regular people, not just scholars. He wanted everyone to think carefully about what they read. He wanted to make critical thinking about literature a normal part of everyday life.
He talked about how writers use language. He talked about what makes a story interesting. He talked about the responsibilities of a writer and a reader. He was bringing literary criticism to a wide audience in a way that had not been done before.
This matters because it helped people see literary criticism as something useful and accessible. Not just for professors or university students, but for anyone who liked to read.
Johnson and the Idea of the Literary Canon
One of the lasting effects of Johnson's work is the idea of the literary canon. The literary canon is the list of books and writers that people agree are the most important and worthy of study.
Johnson helped shape the early English literary canon. Through his Lives of the Poets, he helped decide which writers were worth remembering and which ones were less important. His judgments had a huge influence on which poets got studied in schools and universities for generations.
Of course, today people often question the idea of a fixed canon. Many argue that it has left out important voices, especially women writers and writers from other cultures. But the concept itself, the idea that some works of literature deserve special attention and careful study, owes a lot to Johnson's critical framework.
He helped people understand that not all writing is equal. Some writing is better, deeper, and more lasting than others. And the job of a critic is to help readers figure out which is which.
Johnson's Influence on Later Critics
Many of the greatest literary critics who came after Johnson were deeply influenced by his work.
William Hazlitt, who was one of the best literary critics of the early 1800s, learned from Johnson's honest and direct style. Even when Hazlitt disagreed with Johnson, he was shaped by his approach.
Matthew Arnold, a famous Victorian critic, built on Johnson's idea that great literature should have moral seriousness. Arnold said that great literature should be "a criticism of life," which echoes Johnson's belief that writing should reflect and improve human experience.
T.S. Eliot, one of the most important critics and poets of the 20th century, wrote about Johnson with deep respect. He admired how Johnson combined personal judgment with careful analysis.
Even today, when teachers talk about what makes a great book, they are often using ideas that trace back to Johnson. The questions he asked are still the questions critics ask now.
Why Johnson's Work Still Matters Today
You might be thinking that all of this happened a very long time ago. Why does it still matter?
It matters because the tools Johnson gave us are still useful. Every time a book reviewer explains why a novel works or does not work, they are doing something Johnson helped make possible. Every time a student writes an essay about a poem, they are using a form of criticism that Johnson helped shape.
Johnson showed that literature deserves to be taken seriously. He showed that thinking carefully about writing is a valuable activity. He gave critics a language and a set of ideas they could use to talk about books in a thoughtful way.
He also showed that a good critic does not just say "I liked this" or "I did not like this." A good critic explains why. And that explanation, if done well, helps everyone understand literature a little better.
Johnson's Personal Courage as a Critic
There is one more thing worth mentioning about Samuel Johnson. He was brave as a critic.
Criticism can be a risky thing. If you say that a famous writer's work is not very good, people might not like you for it. They might say you are wrong. They might say you are being disrespectful.
But Johnson did not let that stop him. He said what he honestly thought. He criticized poets who were considered great. He pushed back against popular opinions when he thought those opinions were wrong. He stood behind his judgments and explained them carefully.
This kind of intellectual honesty is rare. And it helped make literary criticism a more trustworthy field. If a critic is willing to say hard things when they are true, then readers can trust that their praise is also honest.
Johnson's courage as a critic set a standard for what a literary critic should be. Not just smart. Not just knowledgeable. But honest and brave enough to say what they really think.
Conclusion: A Foundation That Still Holds
Samuel Johnson did not invent literary criticism. People had been writing about books and plays long before him. But he helped build it into something solid. He gave it principles, standards, and a seriousness it had not always had before.
Through his dictionary, he showed that language matters. Through his Lives of the Poets, he showed that writers deserve careful, honest analysis. Through his preface to Shakespeare, he showed that great writing should be judged by its truth to human life. Through his essays, he brought critical thinking to everyday readers.
The foundation he built is still standing. Every literary critic who came after him, every teacher who explains why a book is worth reading, every student who writes a careful analysis of a poem, is building on work that Samuel Johnson started.
He did not just write about literature. He taught people how to think about it. And that, more than anything else, is why his work laid the foundation of English literary criticism.
Written by Divya Rakesh
