Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Lives of the English poets (1779)by Samuel Johnson
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. "...but a succession of prefaces..." -Through the Magic Door, p. 57 In 1779, Johnson gave the world a luminous proof that the vigour of his mind in all its faculties, whether memory, judgement, or imagination, was not in the least abated; for this year came out the first four volumes of his Prefaces, biographical and critical, to the most eminent of the English Poets, published by the booksellers of London. The remaining volumes came out in the year 1780. --James Boswell, in Life of Johnson " The booksellers having determined to publish a body of English Poetry, I was persuaded to promise them a preface to the works of each author; an undertaking, as it was then presented to my mind, not very tedious or difficult. My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an advertisement, like that which we find in the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates, and a general character; but I have been led beyoud my intention, I hope by the honest desire of giving useful pleasure." From the bookseller’s advertisement, quoted by Boswell in Life of Johnson. He also quotes Johnson’s comment: " Some time in March I finished ' The Lives of the Poets,' which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste." In a memorandum previous to this, he says of them :—" Written, I hope, in such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety." no reviews | add a review
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 No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)821.009Literature English & Old English literatures English poetry English poetry {by more than one author} Modified standard subdivisions History, description, critical appraisal of English poetry not limited by time period or kind of formLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
|