I ordered Johnson on Shakespeare. I have not read any Johnson and you've whetted my appetite.
My literary exposure to Johnson is from the beginning of Vanity Fair, in which Becky Sharp tosses his dictionary out the coach window as a last rebuke to her first enemy, the unpleasant headmistress of the Boarding School who worships Johnson. So that was a negative influence for me on Johnson. Strange how we develop opinions sometimes with such scant evidence!
What I like about Damrosche is that it gives a picture of the intellectual world in which Johnson moved. I was not thinking merely of his essay on Johnson. In our compartmentalized world, we often forget such a rich mixture of people and specialities existed. In Andrew Roberts' "The Last King of America" one sees Johnson working in the King's library, which he opened to scholars and the pleasure the king took in his presence there.
What a fine job of capturing the multi-faceted Johnson. I think Leo Damrosch's "The Club" affords as good a context for understanding him and the way he interacted with others of his time as any I've encountered. I encountered Johnson early and as an undergraduate, many of his pithy comments struck me as "made to shock." With experience, I came to see they were made to challenge lazy thought.
Your point about the Rambler and Idler being blogs is a good one; it also leads me to wonder who is the new Johnson of the modern age.
I've heard it said that the drinking of caffeinated beverages in the eighteenth century was a key catalyst of the more rigorous intellectualism in the Enlightenment era. What are your thoughts?
Love love love this post! Johnson on Shakespeare I could go on and on about - nature over accident, the movement against classical rules, his insight on the three unifies.. I could go on… but I'd just be gushing.
I ordered Johnson on Shakespeare. I have not read any Johnson and you've whetted my appetite.
My literary exposure to Johnson is from the beginning of Vanity Fair, in which Becky Sharp tosses his dictionary out the coach window as a last rebuke to her first enemy, the unpleasant headmistress of the Boarding School who worships Johnson. So that was a negative influence for me on Johnson. Strange how we develop opinions sometimes with such scant evidence!
robertsdavidn.substack.com/about
What I like about Damrosche is that it gives a picture of the intellectual world in which Johnson moved. I was not thinking merely of his essay on Johnson. In our compartmentalized world, we often forget such a rich mixture of people and specialities existed. In Andrew Roberts' "The Last King of America" one sees Johnson working in the King's library, which he opened to scholars and the pleasure the king took in his presence there.
What a fine job of capturing the multi-faceted Johnson. I think Leo Damrosch's "The Club" affords as good a context for understanding him and the way he interacted with others of his time as any I've encountered. I encountered Johnson early and as an undergraduate, many of his pithy comments struck me as "made to shock." With experience, I came to see they were made to challenge lazy thought.
Your point about the Rambler and Idler being blogs is a good one; it also leads me to wonder who is the new Johnson of the modern age.
I've heard it said that the drinking of caffeinated beverages in the eighteenth century was a key catalyst of the more rigorous intellectualism in the Enlightenment era. What are your thoughts?
Love love love this post! Johnson on Shakespeare I could go on and on about - nature over accident, the movement against classical rules, his insight on the three unifies.. I could go on… but I'd just be gushing.
I re-discovered SJ whilst on assignment in Lichfield earlier this year, thank you for adding yet more layers to this fascinating man.
What a beautiful footnote! That says it all.