Samuel Johnson
In 1911, A.C. Bradley, a Shakespearean scholar, presented ‘‘Jane Austen: A Lecture.’’ In it, Bradley praised Austen’s narrative skill and compared her to Samuel Johnson.
At the beginning of his career, Beckett spent his time in Dublin
reading, in his own word, ‘‘wildly.’’ From Johann Goethe to Franz Grillparzer
to Giovanni Guarini, he finally settled into a single-minded concentration upon
the life and work of Samuel Johnson.
The Life of Johnson (1791), is a biography by
James Boswell. Boswell’s biography of his close friend and English poet, Samuel Johnson, was revolutionary in
his use of quoted material and vivid details to paint the picture of a living,
breathing human rather than a dry historical figure.
Well, Samuel Johnson is
still popular for his crushing critique of Donne’s poetry in his ‘‘Life of Cowley’’ (1779). In this
famous essay, Johnson used the term ‘‘metaphysical’’
as a term of abuse to describe poets whose aim, he believed, was to show off
their own cleverness and learning and to construct paradoxes so outlandish and
pretentious as to be ludicrous, indecent, or both.
Again, it was Samuel Johnson, who first called Dryden the Father of English criticism, considered
him the English poet who crystallized the potential for beauty and majesty in
the English language: According to Johnson, ‘‘he found it brick, and he left it
marble.’’
Moral issues dominated critical discussion of Restoration comedy. Critics such as Samuel Johnson and Thomas
Macaulay took the high moral road in condemning Etherege’s work, fearing the
dangers of ‘‘mixed characters’’ on impressionable young minds. Indeed, this was
a view that was common up to the early twentieth century.
Goldsmith furnished The Bee
with miscellaneous essays, short pieces of fiction, and book and play reviews
for its eight-issue run. One such essay by Goldsmith praising the works of Samuel
Johnson and Tobias Smollett came to Smollett’s attention, and he invited
Goldsmith to contribute to his Critical Review.
Goldsmith had a wonderful rendezvous with a coterie of well-known
intellectuals led by Samuel Johnson who called themselves The Club (later the Literary Club), a group that included the
painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, writers James Boswell, Edmund Burke, and Thomas
Percy, and actor and theater manager David Garrick.
Goldsmith died at the Temple on April 4, 1774. His death occasioned
widespread grief. ‘‘Epigrams, epitaphs and monodies to his memory were without
end,’’ wrote Sir Joshua Reynolds in his character sketch. ‘‘Let not his
frailties be remembered,’’ *Samuel Johnson declared,* ‘‘he was a very great
man.’’
On his Life and Work
Known in his day as the ‘‘Great Cham (sovereign or monarch) of Literature,’’ Johnson
displayed a vigorous reasoning intelligence, a keen understanding of human
frailty, and a deep Christian morality.
