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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... imagination . I believe that in fact the opposite is true : a surplus of imagination drives him . The seeming paradox depends on two differ- ent senses of the word . For Johnson , as for most of his predecessors and contemporaries ...
... imagination . But in that regard the creative imagination seems trapped in illusion fully as much as the image- making fancy of earlier times . To speak of a work of art as a living thing , a world of its own , or a perfect whole is to ...
... imagination can be a burden . Moreover , an eye absorbed by images may fail to notice what is happening in front of it . Johnson's alertness to the force of poetry in- duces a sort of double vision , in which Lady Macbeth competes ...
Contents
the Western Islands of Scotland | 234 |
The Lives of the English Poets | 259 |
Johnsons Endings | 295 |
Copyright | |
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