Johnson has not made his meaning entirely clear in these statements
because he has not illustrated his remarks with quotations from the
works or authors under examination. The famous--or notorious--
condemnation of _Lycidas_ as "harsh" in diction continues to give
scholars pause. Most often Johnson has been accused of a poor--or no--
ear for poetry, since the only definition of "harsh" in his _Dictionary_
which is applicable here is "rough to the ear." As no specific lines
from the poem are labelled "harsh," one is forced to conclude that the
whole poem is unmusical to Johnson's ears--if "harsh" means only "rough
to the ear." But the notes to Shakespeare make it perfectly clear that
"harsh" often means something other than that. Sometimes a line is
stigmatised as "harsh" because it contains what Johnson in _Rambler_ No.
88 called the "collision of consonants." An image offends his sense of
propriety and is therefore "harsh." Some words are "harsh" because they
are "appropriated to particular arts" (the phrase comes from his _Life
of Dryden_). Thus, in _Measure for Measure_, a "leaven'd choice" is
"one of Shakespeare's harsh metaphors" because it conjures up images of
a baker at his trade. Johnson also uses "harsh" to describe a word used
in a sense not familiar to him. And "harsh" is sometimes used
synonymously with "forced and far-fetched." "Is't not a kind of incest,
to take life From thine own sister's shame?" asks Isabella of her
brother in _Measure for Measure_, provoking from Johnson the remark that
in her "declamation there is something harsh, and something forced and
far-fetched." Only now, with the varying uses of "harsh" as exemplified
in the notes to Shakespeare as guides, can one hope better to understand
the bare statement that the diction of _Lycidas_ is "harsh." Similar
investigation of other important words in Johnson's critical vocabulary
is possible through a close study of his commentary on Shakespeare's
plays. Words such as "elegant," "inartificial," "just," "low,"