Why has Dr Johnson valued Shakespeare's comedies over his tragedies?

Question: Shakespeare's tragedy seems to be a skill, his comedy to be instinct. Elucidate this statement from your reading of Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare.

Or,  According to Samuel Johnson, why is comedy is valued over tragedy in Preface to Shakespeare?

👉While discussing Shakespeare's mingling of tragedy and comedy, Johnson compares Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies as regards their respective merits. In Johnson's views, Shakespeare's comedies are not only greater than his tragedies but are more congenial to his temperament. Johnson quotes several instances to support his view in this connection. The section of the Preface to Shakespeare in which he deals with this issue is not only the least convincing but also the most surprising.

First, Johnson attacks the criteria on which the plays of Shakespeare are classified into comedies, tragedies and histories. This classification is not done carefully. It was done by his first editors in a random way and this classification is blindly followed by many of the later critics and editors.

This classification into tragedies and comedies is not based on the dominant mood and atmosphere of the plays but only on the nature of their catastrophe. Johnson believes that Shakespeare's general idea of his over-all design of all his plays is the same.

The plays all involve scenes of merriment and seriousness. Shakespeare had none to imitate and there was no critic to criticise his dramatic defects; so he was free to indulge in his natural instinct and genius in his plays.

In Johnson's view, his natural instinct finds a more suitable outlet in his comedies than in his tragedies. In clear terms, it can be said that Johnson finds Shakespeare to be a great comedy-writer than a tragedian. The reasons are stated below:

1. According to Johnson, comedy came naturally to Shakespeare, and not a tragedy. In the opinion of Johnson, Shakespeare's comedies are spontaneous and artistically superior to tragedies; whereas his tragedies seem to Johnson artificial as well as artistically inferior:

In tragedy, he often writes with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at last with little felicity; but in his comic scenes, he seems to produce without labour, what no labour can improve.

2. Johnson believes that comedy was more suitable for Shakespeare's genius than a tragedy because-

In tragedy, he is always struggling after some occasion to be comic; but in comedy, he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature.

3. Johnson believes that whereas Shakespeare's comedies are perfect, tragedies always lack something we desire and look for.

In his tragic scenes, there is always something wanting, but his comedy often surpasses expectation or desire.

Shakespeare's tragedies give pleasure because of the variety of incidents and actions, whereas in the case of comedy we derive pleasure from its thought and language and the felicity of expression.

5. Shakespeare's comic scenes are natural and, therefore, durable; hence their popularity has not suffered from the passing of time.

6. The language of his comic scenes is the language of real life, neither gross nor over-refined, and hence it hasn't grown obsolete. His language is nearer to us than that of any other poet of his age. He is one of the great and original masters of the language. His comic personages are real human beings and they act and speak as human beings would under the circumstances.

7. We see that Johnson's views on the merits and defects of Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies are open to objection on almost every point. We cannot agree with his argument that Shakespeare's natural instinct is more suitable for comedy than tragedy.

We can't accept the view that Shakespeare added comic scenes in his great tragedies because he had an unnatural inclination towards comedy. Actually, the comic scenes in the tragedies harmonise with the mood of the play in almost every case.

Johnson is also wrong in his observation that Shakespeare's comedies are spontaneous while the tragedies are laboured, and that the comic scenes leave nothing to desire whereas there is always something lacking in the tragic scenes.

The total impression of the tragedies and the comedies is in keeping with the nature of those plays. If the comedies create a greater impression of spontaneity, the tragedies impress us with their loftiness and gravity, and we hardly feel that they are less spontaneous.

Moreover, Johnson's strictures seem to ignore his own observation that the classification of Shakespeare's plays doesn't rest upon any sound basis. Thus, Johnson's view that Shakespeare's tragedies display his skill whereas the comedies reveal his instinct is not a sound judgement.