Q.7. What in Johnson’s view, is the role of art and morality in an aesthetic rendering?
How far is he influenced in this respect by the age in which he lived?
Or,How far, do you think have Johnson’s views on art and morality influenced his judgement of Shakespeare’s plays? Discuss with reference to Johnson’s Preface.
Ans. Art and Morality. Aesthetic pleasure for Johnson is closely related to morality. In Johnson’sage the tendency was to believe that the pleasure principle was subordinate to a moral purpose. Johnson holds that art can yield true pleasure only if it is built on a serious moral frame work. With Johnson, then, pleasure is not secondary to morality; the two coexist; they are not separate ingredients, but together they form a compound, a new product., an organic whole, Shakespeare and morality. Johnson regrets Shakespeare’s failing to give us, in the least act of As You Like It, the scene between Duke Frederick and the hermit that brought about the former’s repentance and transformation from sinner to saint. While it is possible for us to regard Johnson’s complaint against Shakespeare as being excessively conditioned by his moral preoccupations, on the other hand it is equally possible to argue that artistically Johnson is right. We are naturally anxious to know how exactly the marvellous advice the “old religious man” gave to Duke Frederick converted him in a few brief moments from sinner to saint. Duke Frederick’s transformation must be shown as an integral part of the play, not merely the convenient, “happy ending” that Shakespeare has turned it into. However, we can object to this drawback on grounds of artistic credibility but not, as Johnson does, on moral grounds. Johnson expects from Shakespeare something more substantial than what the sentimental dramas of his period could offer. Colley Cibber, Johnson’s contemporary and a popular dramatist whom Johnson heartily despised, had set the fashion for the sentimental comedy that flourished at the time. In Cibber’s play Love’s Last Shift the usual licentious characters and themes of the period are to be found, but in the last act of the play a ‘moral’ ending is superimposed— all the sinners repent and turn into saints. Perhaps it is due to Johnson’s distaste for this kind of an artificial morality that he resents Shakespeare having taken the same kind of a short cut in concluding As You Like It. But in fact, Johnson condemns Shakespeare for he “suppressed the dialogue between the usurper and the hermit and lost an opportunity of exhibiting a moral lesson in which he might have found matter worthy of his highest powers”. Himself well aware of the pressures under which an author often writes, Johnson is ready to excuse Shakespeare for his lapses occasioned by similar pressures. Johnson complains about Shakespeare having scarified, “virtue to convenience” as the result of such pressures giving rise to haste and carelessness. In Act V of All’s Well That Ends Well, “Shakespeare is now hastening to the end of the play” and so is not particularly concerned about retribution being meted out to the villain, Bertram. Despite his despicable behaviour, he is “dismissed to happiness” says Johnson in a Note. Johnson finds it impossible to reconcile himself to the manner in which Shakespeare concludes the play. Likewise Johnson notes of Angelo in Measure for Measure that “every reader feels some indignation when he finds him spared.” Before objecting to Dr. Johnson’s charge against Shakespeare for making “no just distribution of good or evil” we should ask ourselves if Othello would have been aesthetically satisfying without Emilia’s denunciation of Othello — and his subsequent death, and likewise, Macbeth, without our witnessing Macbeth’s receiving due retribution in the form of his head being brought on stage by a victorious Macduff. Clearly, in these cases moral judgement is an integral part of the aesthetic experience and Johnson’s unhappiness at this fundamental truth being at times ignored by Shakespeare is consistent with the approval with which we regard the endings of Othello and Macbeth.
The credibility of dramatic events. To Johnson Shakespeare often makes no just distribution of good or evil” because he is so much more careful to please than to instruct. Thus the marriage of Olivia to Sebastian in Twelfth Night fails to satisfy Johnson because it is simply a marriage of convenience. Shakespeare wanted to send his audience home happy, and since Olivia cannot marry viola, her twin brother will do equally well. Johnson concedes that such an ending is “well enough contrived to divert on the stage”, but it “wants credibility and fails to produce the proper instruction required in the drama” (Note on Twelfth Night). Is Johnson bringing to Shakespeare’s comedies too liberal a mind to catch the strains that poetic drama emits? Is his critical sensibility too sturdily allied to common sense to truly appreciate the subtleties of Shakespearean comedy? It would be easy to reply in the affirmative and dismiss Johnson for his apparent insistence on comedy being as consistent as life itself. But, perhaps, by so doing, we would overlook Johnson’s warm approval of Shakespeare’s comic scenes in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature”; his comedy often surpasses expectation or desire”; his comedy pleases by the thoughts and the language”; “his comedy (seems to be) instinct. For this side of Shakespeare Johnson’s appreciation knows no dilution, but when Shakespeare hurries towards his ending with little regard for plausibility or propriety, Johnson states his disapproval. He wishes that Shakespeare had brought to the writing of his plays, from start to finish, the same high seriousness that manifests itself so impressively in his best scenes.
