Johnson is writing for someone interested and intelligent but not necessarily educated in literary things, someone who is interested in learning about poetry and its machinery and what makes it good. He is careful to help readers to discover the best writing, and to see how it was done. Criticism disdains to chase a schoolboy to his common-places.Ĭriticism does not disdain to point to Gray’s technical faults, and a good thing too: “Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded.” This criticism reflects Johnson’s concern for the common reader. The second stanza, exhibiting Mars’s car and Jove’s eagle, is unworthy of further notice. Even poems that start off being praised get this sort of dismissive review: Much of the rest of Gray’s writing disappointed Johnson. Johnson said this about Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard. I rejoice to concur with the common reader for by the common sense of readers uncorrupted with literary prejudices, after all the refinements of subtilty and the dogmatism of learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical honours. The starting point is Samuel Johnson, who wrote in the Life of Gray :
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