Samuel Johnson After 300 Years

Samuel Johnson After 300 Years
Author: Greg Clingham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2009-05-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0521888212

To mark the tercentenary of Samuel Johnson's birth in 2009, the specially-commissioned essays contained here review his scholarly reputation. An international team of experts reflects authoritatively on the various dimensions of literary, historical, critical and ethical life touched by Johnson's extraordinary achievement. The volume distinctively casts its net widely and combines consistently innovative thinking on Johnson's historical role with a fresh sense of present criticism. Chapters cover subjects as diverse as Johnson's moral philosophy, his legal thought, his influence on Jane Austen, and the question of the Johnson canon. The contributors examine the larger theoretical and scholarly contexts in which it is now possible to situate his work, and from which it may often be necessary to differentiate it. All the contributors have a distinguished record of scholarship in eighteenth-century studies, Johnson scholarship, and cultural history and theory.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson
Author: Jeffrey Meyers
Publisher: Oldcastle Books Ltd
Total Pages: 543
Release: 2015-11-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1904915507

Jeffrey Meyers tells the extraordinary story of Samuel Johnson one of the most illustrious figures of English literary tradition. Johnson was famous as a poet, novelist, biographer, essayist, critic, editor, lexicographer, conversationalist and larger than life personality. After nine years of work Johnson's, 'A dictionary of the English Language, was published in 1755. He overcame great adversity to achieve success. 'The Struggle' is a masterful portrait of a brilliant and tormented figure.

Samuel Johnson's Insults

Samuel Johnson's Insults
Author: Jack Lynch
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2009-05-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0802719341

Lackbrain, oysterwench, wantwit, clotpoll--Samuel Johnson's famous dictionary of 1755 contained some of the ripest insults in the English language. In Samuel Johnson's Insults, Jack Lynch has compiled more than 300 of the curmudgeonly lexicographer's mightiest barbs, along with definitions only the master himself could elucidate. Word lovers will delight in flexing their linguistic muscles with devilishly descriptive vituperations that pack a wicked punch. Many of these zingers have long lain dormant. Some have even come close to extinction. Now they're back in all their prickly glory, ready to be relished once more.

The Lives of the Poets

The Lives of the Poets
Author: Samuel Johnson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 560
Release: 2009-05-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0191622737

'If a man is to write A Panegyrick, he may keep vices out of sight; but if he professes to write A Life, he must represent it really as it was.' In the last of his major writings, Samuel Johnson looked back over the previous two centuries of English Literature in order to describe the personalities as well as the achievements of the leading English poets. The major Lives - of Milton, Dryden, Swift, and Pope - are memorable cameos of the life of writing in which Johnson is as attentive to human frailty as to literary prowess. The shorter Lives preserve some of Johnson's most piercing, critical judgements. Unsentimental, opinionated, and quotable, The Lives of the Poets continues to influence the reputations of the writers concerned. It is one of the greatest works of English criticism, but also one of the most humanly diverting. This selection of the Lives of ten of the most important poets draws its text from Roger Lonsdale's authoritative complete edition. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Age of Johnson

The Age of Johnson
Author: Jack Lynch
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2021-06-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1684483026

The move to a new publisher has given The Age of Johnson: A Scholarly Annual the opportunity to recommit to what it does best: present to a wide readership cant-free scholarly articles and essays and searching book reviews, all featuring a wide variety of approaches, written by both seasoned scholars and relative newcomers. Volume 24 features commentary on a range of Johnsonian topics: his reaction to Milton, his relation to the Allen family, his notes in his edition of Shakespeare, his use of Oliver Goldsmith in his Dictionary, and his always fascinating Nachleben. The volume also includes articles on topics of strong interest to Johnson: penal reform, Charlotte Lennox's professional literary career, and the "conjectural history" of Homer in the eighteenth century. For more than two decades, The Age of Johnson has presented a vast corpus of Johnsonian studies "in the broadest sense," as founding editor Paul J. Korshin put it in the preface to Volume 1, and it has retained the interest of a wide readership. In thousands of pages of articles, review essays, and reviews, The Age of Johnson has made a permanent contribution to our understanding of the eighteenth century, and particularly of Samuel Johnson, his circle, and his interests, and has also served as an outlet for writers who are not academics but have something important to say about the eighteenth century. ISSN 0884-5816.

The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Johnson

The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Johnson
Author: Jack Lynch
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 705
Release: 2022-09-22
Genre:
ISBN: 0198794665

No major author worked in more genres than Samuel Johnson--essays, poetry, fiction, criticism, biography, scholarly editing, lexicography, translation, sermons, journalism. His works are more extensive than those of any other canonical English writer, and no earlier writer's life was documented as thoroughly by contemporaries. Because it's so difficult to know him thoroughly, people have made do with surrogates and simplifications. But Johnson was much more complicated than the popular image of 'Dr. Johnson' suggests: socially conservative but also one of the most radical abolitionists of his age, a firm believer in social hierarchy but an outspoken supporter of women intellectuals, an uncompromising Christian moralist but also a penetrating critic of family structures. Labels fit him poorly. In The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Johnson, an international team of thirty-six scholars offers the most comprehensive examination ever attempted of one of the most complex figures in English literature. The book's first section examines Johnson's life and the texts of his works; the second, organized by genre, explores all his major works and many of his minor ones; the third, organized by topic, covers the subjects that were most important to him as a writer, as a thinker, and as a moralist.