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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... readers , present and future , who hold the fate of the work in their hands , but also the ideal imagined readers who fill the author's mind at the moment of writing . Both kinds of readers play a part in this book . From one point of ...
... readers , who with- out vanity or criticism seek only their own amusement , " and " he who pleases many must have some species of merit " ( 1 : 302 ) . The critic humbly defers to a higher authority , the enjoyment of those who know ...
... readers will always find ways to justify poems that they love . Nor can one deny that what provokes readers depends on personal taste and the tastes of the age . The poetic ef- fects that distract Johnson most - the useless supplication ...
Contents
the Western Islands of Scotland | 234 |
The Lives of the English Poets | 259 |
Johnsons Endings | 295 |
Copyright | |
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