Samuel Johnson: The Life of an AuthorHarvard University Press, 2009 M07 1 - 384 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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... feeling that keep that writing alive . Any author might be the subject of such a book . Perhaps no au- thor offers more of a challenge , however , than Samuel Johnson . For most of the last two centuries , Johnson's personality — or ...
... feel rebuked ; he must also feel that he has made a mistake , that he was not discerning enough to see the merit he neglected . Hence Johnson needs to exhibit all his powers . The letter to Chesterfield does not conceal its own art ...
... feeling humiliated . The strain is likely to bring on an in- voluntary recoil , like a nagging pain in the back . Johnson always per- ceives some tension or absurdity in " the levelling doctrine . " 25 At any rate , the letter to ...
... feeling of deja vu . Once again the lord had patronized him ; once again the great man had given a hand to his servant . Time had stood still , so far as The World was concerned , and the puff had blown Johnson back to the winter of his ...
... feels , his debt not to any would - be patron of learning but to " the propagators of knowledge " and " teachers of truth . " 47 An author who knows his business ought always to remember where he comes from , the long line of earlier ...
Contents
11 | |
34 | |
48 | |
Preferments Gate The Vanity of Human Wishes | 86 |
Man of Letters A Dictionary of the English Language | 103 |
The Living World The Rambler | 145 |
Reclaiming Imagination Rasselas | 173 |
The Theater of Mind The Plays of William Shakespeare | 198 |
Journeying Westward Political Writings A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland | 234 |
Touching the Shore The Lives of the English Poets | 259 |
The Life to Come Johnsons Endings | 295 |
Abbreviation | 307 |
Notes | 309 |
Index | 363 |