Samuel Johnson After Deconstruction: Rhetoric and the RamblerSIU Press, 1992 - 191 pages "My other works are wine and water," said Samuel Johnson to Samuel Rogers, "but my Rambler is pure wine." Some critics have disagreed, labeling the essays uneven and dismissing the bulk of them as hastily concocted hackwork by a writer taking a break from or earning money for a more important project--the Dictionary of the English Language. Yet, Steven Lynn, in the first book-length study of The Rambler, resoundingly contradicts such critics; combining deconstruction and other current methods with eighteenth-century rhetorical theories, Lynn refutes conventional critical wisdom among Johnsonians, asserting that the 208 Rambler essays form a coherent whole. Lynn argues that a controlling tenet in the series is that "we are each and every one ramblers, wandering and searching for some stable meaning and satisfaction, which will inevitably elude us in this world. By confronting this absence, Johnson (like a deconstructive theologian) leads us repeatedly to acknowledge the necessity of faith." For Lynn, furthermore, the unifying thread running through the series is expressed in the prayer Johnson composed as he embarked on the journey of The Rambler: "Almighty God, . . . without whose grace all wisdom is folly, grant, I beseech Thee, that in this my undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be witheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the Salvation both of myself and others." As Lynn shows, though Johnson anticipates deconstruction, his controlling evangelistic aim differs profoundly and instructively from it. |
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... essay series by the unparalleled success of The Spectator , may easily underestimate the significance of The Rambler when they learn that its initial printing never surpassed five hundred copies for any particular issue , com- pared to ...
... series poses some significant critical problems , perhaps most obviously in its expanse : three volumes , 1088 pages , in the Yale edition ; 208 essays — all but 4 , and parts of 3 others , amazingly , written by Johnson , who at the ...
... essay alone , which exposes Milton's faults in adjusting sound to sense ... series as a whole . If one should decide to include the Milton sequence ... series , prints only the first letter by Hymenaeus , and the concluding discussion of ...
... essays , in other words , are important for reasons extrinsic to the series itself . To know if these essays , or any other selection of essays , are particularly representative of The Rambler as a whole in any sense , we would have to ...
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