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." |
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... verse , a language end- lessly drilled into British schoolboys . Seldom have the virtues of a classical education been more aggressively displayed . Summoning all the texts that have taught him to stand up for authors , Johnson authors ...
... verses before he came to the end , and thus slumped into an emblem that would let everyone know he was falling . Cleora will not warm him with her smile , nor will he pretend that he expects to be smiled at . At the onset of spring ...
... verses are characteristic . Botanically , the daffodil bears the formal name of Narcissus pseudo - narcissus , and the poem reflects a classic narcissistic pattern . Its rapture over an idolized image of the self inevitably tumbles into ...
... verse before Addison . " 12 Irene , the tragedy on which Johnson probably expended more effort than on anything else he ever wrote , has always been recognized as an offspring of Cato.13 Ad- dison's allegorical " Visions of Mirzah ...
... verse paragraph keeps sliding downward till it ends with Death . The Rambler often opens on the same low note . To generalize about human nature is to invite dejec- tion if not despair . Not only does the collective experience of ...
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 |