Chapter 5 - Shakespeare, Johnson and Philosophy

Summary

Johnson found Shakespeare full of truths; but how far Shakespeare thinks philosophically has been debated. This chapter considers how Shakespeare has been considered a thinker in dramatic form. He enacts morals via character and dramatic situation. Johnson generates no philosophical aesthetics. Indeed, his criticism is a counterweight to contemporary analysis of such concepts as the “sublime,” or “genius.” However, he does appreciate the ways in which Shakespeare thinks and the senses in which the plays help us to think rationally about life. Johnson’s praise of Shakespeare as “the poet of nature” forms a contrast with major eighteenth-century philosophers. They did not always think highly of Shakespeare. Yet Kant’s ambition not to “allow my judgement to be determined by a priori proofs” suggests a philosophical analogue for both Pope and Johnson. They were aware that Shakespeare can deliver in the moment an experience that no thought or theory could seem to precede, explain or predict, but that once experienced, appears natural and universal.