Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson

How hard is Preface to Shakespeare to read?

Preface to Shakespeare scores 42 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 72 out of 100

Johnson's prose is saturated with Latinate vocabulary and 18th-century critical terminology: 'oeconomical prudence,' 'adventitious peculiarities,' 'animadversion,' 'calenture,' 'emendatory,' 'scholiast.' Archaic spellings and constructions ('authour,' 'stile,' 'shewn') appear throughout, and readers unfamiliar with neoclassical critical discourse will encounter unfamiliar terms on nearly every page, though context usually clarifies meaning.

Sentence structure: 74 out of 100

Johnson deploys long, balanced periodic sentences with multiple layers of parallel and subordinate clauses — 'To works, however, of which the excellence is not absolute and definite, but gradual and comparative; to works not raised upon principles demonstrative and scientifick, but appealing wholly to observation and experience, no other test can be applied than length of duration and continuance of esteem.' Sentences routinely span 80–150 words with several embedded clauses, requiring readers to hold complex grammatical structures in mind, though the logical organization is more transparent than Jamesian hypotaxis.

Abstraction: 80 out of 100

The essay operates almost entirely at the level of philosophical and critical abstraction: theories of dramatic illusion, the epistemology of theatrical time and place, the ethics of poetic justice, the nature of character and general nature. Concrete examples from Shakespeare's plays serve strictly as evidence for abstract propositions, and Johnson moves rapidly from particular observations to general principles. The level of abstraction approaches Brothers Karamazov's philosophical debates, but in expository rather than dramatic form.

Information density: 72 out of 100

Johnson packs historical claims about Elizabethan culture, comparative assessments of Greek and Roman dramatic theory, refutations of Voltaire, Dennis, and Rymer, accounts of every prior Shakespeare editor from Rowe to Warburton, and sustained literary-philosophical arguments into dense, economical paragraphs. The editorial notes add technical textual emendation discussions with competing scholarly readings. Each paragraph typically advances multiple distinct claims simultaneously.

Narrative indirection: 20 out of 100

This is explicit expository prose: Johnson states his arguments directly, announces his conclusions, and tells the reader exactly what to think of Shakespeare's virtues and faults. There is no narrative requiring inference or reconstruction — 'his first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in books or in men.' The reader is the audience for an argument, not a meaning they must independently assemble.

Symbolic density: 28 out of 100

The text is critical prose with occasional extended metaphors deployed as rhetorical illustrations — Shakespeare's works as a forest of oaks versus a garden, quibbles as luminous vapours leading a traveler into a mire. These are vivid figurative passages but not sustained symbolic structures requiring interpretive work. The text means exactly what it says, and figurative language clarifies rather than complicates meaning.

Ironic distance: 52 out of 100

Johnson employs irony regularly and with precision: his mock-deference before the authorities he opposes ('I am almost frighted at my own temerity'), his satirical portraits of Theobald ('weak and ignorant, thus mean and faithless') delivered in the tone of sober assessment, and his rhetorical demolition of Voltaire. Readers must calibrate when Johnson is performing deference versus genuine hesitation, and when his praise of editors carries an edge of contempt.

Resolution withholding: 22 out of 100

As a formal critical essay, the text is explicitly argumentative and conclusive — Johnson advances positions, anticipates objections, and arrives at explicit verdicts. The discussion of the unities ends with a clear conclusion; the assessment of Shakespeare's faults is baldly stated. The editorial notes close with definite readings. There is no cultivated ambiguity or resistance to closure.

Structural complexity: 18 out of 100

The text has a straightforward two-part structure: a general critical preface followed by annotated notes on seven plays in sequence. The organization is transparent, sequential, and conventional for the genre. No timeline jumps, no point-of-view shifts, no formal experiments. The transition from general essay to specific play notes is clearly marked.

How Preface to Shakespeare is regarded

Preface to Shakespeare holds a literary regard score of 86 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Samuel Johnson