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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... " , they took delight in challenging orthodox views . Today that orthodoxy no longer recruits many scholars and critics , and a new anti - authorial consensus has largely replaced it . The reasons for this change are very 3 Introduction.
The Life of an Author Lawrence Lipking. replaced it . The reasons for this change are very complex . It seems unlikely that the arguments of Barthes and Foucault themselves car- ried the day , since those arguments , however suggestive ...
... reason why becoming an author is such an uncertain and controver- sial calling or choice of life ; sometimes the goal veers away just as the runner begins to approach it . The same reason may clarify why issues of authorship can be so ...
... reasons for doubt . Undeniably it attacks a bad patron and expresses a disillu- sionment with patrons in general . No reader can miss the aim of Johnson's loaded question : " Is not a Patron , My Lord , one who looks with unconcern on a ...
... reasons for arrogance and sub- mission , I find them so nearly equiponderant , that my impatience to try the event of my first performance will not suffer me to attend any longer the trepidations of the balance . " 37 Once again he ...
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 |