The Life of Samuel JohnsonPenguin UK, 30.10.2008 - 1312 Seiten In Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the towering figures of English literature is revealed with unparalleled immediacy and originality. While Johnson’s Dictionary remains a monument of scholarship, and his essays and criticism command continuing respect, we owe our knowledge of the man himself to this biography. Through a series of wonderfully detailed anecdotes, Johnson emerges as a sociable figure with a huge appetite for life, crossing swords with other great eighteenth-century luminaries, from Garrick and Goldsmith to Burney and Burke – even his long-suffering friend and disciple James Boswell. Yet Johnson had a vulnerable, even tragic, side and anxieties and obsessions haunted his private hours. Boswell’s sensitivity and insight into every facet of his subject’s character ultimately make this biography as moving as it is entertaining. |
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... passed a considerable time at Oxford. He at first thought it strange that Langton should associate so much with one who had the character of being loose, both in his principles and practice; but, by degrees, he himself was fascinated ...
... passed ... William Bowles concurred: 'It is very well known that in the latter part of Dr. Johnson's life he became much dejected with gloomy apprehensions respecting his reception in a future world.'30 The object of Johnson's ...
... passed through my mind long before he wrote.'86 Johnson's vehement rejection of Hume is thus to some extent the child of their proximity: 'He would not allow Mr. David Hume any credit for his political principles, though similar to his ...
... passed in it, he called to me with warmth, 'Give me your hand; I have taken a liking to you.'123 What Johnson warms to in Boswell is the shadow of his own religious misgivings and imperfections. This strenuous conforming of his mind and ...
... passed through the press; but after having completed his very laborious and admirable edition of Shakspeare, for which he generously would accept of no other reward but that fame which he has so deservedly obtained, he fulfilled his ...