Samuel JohnsonHarvard University Press, 1998 - 372 pages He was a servant to the public, a writer for hire. He was a hero, an author adding to the glory of his nation. But can a writer be both hack and hero? The career of Samuel Johnson, recounted here by Lawrence Lipking, proves that the two can be one. And it further proves, in its enduring interest for readers, that academic fashions today may be a bit hasty in pronouncing the "death of the author." |
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... career offers a better test case of the way that an author is made . Johnson's life has often been used to define what authorship means . To later generations , beginning with Boswell , he seemed the perfect model of a self - made man ...
... career of " a perfect Town Author . " The work seems to have left a strong impression on Johnson . He later praised its author in very high terms : " Of his exact Observations on human Life he has left a Proof , which would do Honour to ...
... career of the hero shrivels into motifs of print - just like the career of an author . Yet Johnson was also showing what he could do . He had outlived the young Enthusiast and turned his eyes on the passing world , where usefulness ...
Contents
the Western Islands of Scotland | 234 |
The Lives of the English Poets | 259 |
Johnsons Endings | 295 |
Copyright | |
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