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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... hope , " he had already been making his living as a hack writer for ten years without any " favours from the Great . " In fact he knew such dreams were laughable . An essay he wrote for The Adventurer in 1753 , on " The Age of Authors ...
... hope ; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth , and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow ; attend to the history of Rasselas prince of Abissinia . " This story clearly aims to dash our ...
... hope of contentment ; so long as one shuns the futile effort to reconcile con- tradictions , one's cup can always be full . Yet an undertone darkens the passage . Imlac's favorite saying re- calls a graver image over which Johnson often ...
Contents
the Western Islands of Scotland | 234 |
The Lives of the English Poets | 259 |
Johnsons Endings | 295 |
Copyright | |
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