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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... person but often fail to satisfy the kind of reader who cares about authors because of what they have written . By contrast , this book passes over details that do not shed light on the work . It assumes that the crucial part of an ...
... persons are not agents or subjects but subject- positions . Hence the name of an " author " has no meaning , according to Foucault , except as an abbreviation for " author - function , " a feature of texts or discourse in the age of ...
... person . Moreover , the writer flourishes his pedigree . Witty , knowing , and confident , he represents the beau monde , the only world that matters in The World.2 Only someone convinced that lan- guage belongs to people of his sort ...
... . As a matter of fact , at least one person remembered the origi- nal as different from the official copy Johnson dictated some decades later.15 Perhaps " that celebrated letter of which so 15 The Letter to Chesterfield.
... person . First of all it draws the no- bleman in . Only in retrospect does the opening paragraph unfold its irony . On a first reading , the author's apparent awkwardness about knowing how to respond to such " favours " must have seemed ...
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 |