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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... give way to theory , " and people naturally write better than they live . Therefore " Nothing is more unjust , however common , than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues , which he neglects to practise ...
... gives " the accent of a human voice , " eventu- ally yields to a stillness in which the human voice itself causes fear by ... give the roof its own power of " communicating " or " expressing . " Similarly , the parallelism of “ look cold ...
... give them was any kind of show . Perhaps that was his ultimate source of pride . The defensiveness of the prologue , which was probably written just before Irene opened , reflects an encounter with reality , as Johnson brooded over what ...
Contents
the Western Islands of Scotland | 234 |
The Lives of the English Poets | 259 |
Johnsons Endings | 295 |
Copyright | |
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