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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... , and the psy- chological depth of W. Jackson Bate's Samuel Johnson ( 1977 ) . More recently , Robert DeMaria Jr. , in The Life of Samuel Johnson ( 1993 ) , has surveyed the literary career of a Renaissance man . 2 Introduction.
... literary studies , than the label " author . " In the 1960s , when Roland Barthes announced " The Death of the Author " and Michel Foucault impatiently raised the question " What Is an Author ? " , they took delight in challenging ...
... literary form , as Homer wrote the first epic , or only manufacturing one further instance , as Blackmore wrote a thing called King Arthur . Such distinctions matter greatly to Johnson the critic , who holds that " the highest praise of ...
... literary critic sifts out the inessential circumstances of a piece of writing in order to es- timate its kernel of genius and truth . Similarly , in Johnson's terms , knowing an author requires some study of the historical context , not ...
... literary market . Booksellers , not patrons , commissioned the Dictionary . When John- son first fell into his " Dream of hope , " he had already been making his living as a hack writer for ten years without any " favours from the Great ...
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 |