Dr. Johnson had his own views on the various forms of poetry. He graded different forms of poetry according to his estimation of each. He considered the epic to be the highest form of poetry. "By the general consent of critics", he says, "the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions. Epic poetry undertakes to teach the most important truths by the most pleasing precepts, and therefore relates some great events in the most affecting manner." Tragedy comes next only to the epic, primarily on account of its cathartic effect. But Dr. Johnson does not go to that extent.
Among the verse forms which he placed lowest in their merit are the pastoral and the Pindaric Ode. The pastoral may have pleased the public in ancient times by its realistic pictures of the countryside-hills, valleys, streams, shepherds and their flock. But now these objects have lost their charms. It is now highly artificial to presume that the poet is a shepherd living in pastoral dales with his flock of sheep and lambs, and whining away his time on his flute. It is on account of his artificial imagery that he condemns Milton's famous pastoral elegy Lycidas. About Lycidas he says, "In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth; there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting". Almost for the same reason he considered the Pindaric Ode unsuited to modern conditions, It may have suited the particular occasions in ancient Greece, for which it was intended, but now it is merely a form without any substance today.
