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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... interest for readers , that aca- demic fashions today may be a bit hasty in pronouncing the " death of the author . " A book about the life of an author , about how an author is made , not born . Lip- king's Samuel Johnson is the story ...
... interest first with his own writings , which drop faint personal hints that have proved more intriguing than many bold confessions . Once he was gone , the trickle of anecdotes swelled into a flood . Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the ...
... interest . Nor is this focus on the life at all unsuited to a writer who , as Boswell said , " excelled all mankind in writing the lives of others . " The effort to think oneself into the frame of mind and the motives of someone else ...
... interest in individuality or genius , sometimes to the search for a guarantee of validity in interpretation , sometimes to a harking back to origins , sometimes to the effort to sanction writing as a profession , and sometimes to ...
... interest of his writing . It also carries the burden of this book . Above all , however , this book tries to see the life of an author through Johnson's eyes . What did being a writer mean to him ? How did he understand his own career ...
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 |