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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... thought his work part of a long reformation in poetry - not backward but forward looking . After centuries of progress , the im- provement and refinement of versification had reached a grand climax in Pope : " By perusing the works of ...
... thought must chart the sequence of events , discarding each piece of wishful thinking until nothing remains but hard - bought , hopeless wisdom . Hence a new disappointment arrives each day , as regular as the mail . How can such a plot ...
... thought also inspires the narrative as a whole . Just as the travelers finally enter the Highlands , a long , self - conscious , poetic passage sketches the time and place of the book's concep- tion . " I sat down on a bank , such as a ...
Contents
the Western Islands of Scotland | 234 |
The Lives of the English Poets | 259 |
Johnsons Endings | 295 |
Copyright | |
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