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." |
From inside the book
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... story ends - not with a final victory but with Truth in ascendance , thanks to Fiction's aid . No story could be more explicit . Nevertheless , some holes might be poked in the fable . In her final maneuvers , Truth actually imper ...
... story will end , and fiction teaches the futility of fiction . Mean- while we are all at sea.29 Nor do we ever touch shore in Johnson's fables . All his techniques for insuring that fiction will do no harm - the explicitness , the cau ...
... story . In 1764 a biographical sketch referred to Johnson as " This excellent Writer , who is no less the Glory of ... story to tell , a story that took account of what happens to someone whose wish has been granted , whose talent is ...
Contents
the Western Islands of Scotland | 234 |
The Lives of the English Poets | 259 |
Johnsons Endings | 295 |
Copyright | |
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