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Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford, until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. Early works include '' Life of Mr Richard Savage'', the poems ''London'' and '' The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and the play '' Irene''. After nine years of effort, Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated '' The Plays of William Shakespeare'', and the apologue '' The Hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The History Of Rasselas, Prince Of Abissinia
''The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia'', originally titled ''The Prince of Abissinia: A Tale'', though often abbreviated to ''Rasselas'', is an apologue about bliss and ignorance by Samuel Johnson. The book's original working title was "The Choice of Life". The book was first published in April 1759 in England. Early readers considered ''Rasselas'' to be a work of philosophical and practical importance and critics often remark on the difficulty of classifying it as a novel. Origin and influences At the age of fifty, Johnson wrote the piece in only one week to help pay the costs of his mother's funeral, intending to complete it on 22 January 1759 (the eve of his mother's death). Johnson is believed to have received a total of £75 for the copyright. Though this is still popular belief, Wharton and Mayerson's book, "''Samuel Johnson and the Theme of Hope''," explains how James Boswell, the author of Life of Johnson, Johnson's biography, was "entirely wrong in supposing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life Of Samuel Johnson
''The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.'' (1791) by James Boswell is a biography of English writer and literary critic Samuel Johnson. The work was from the beginning a universal critical and popular success, and represents a landmark in the development of the modern genre of biography. Many have called it the greatest biography written in English, one of the greatest biographies ever written, and among the greatest nonfiction books of all time. The book is valued as both an important source of information on Johnson and his times, as well as an important and enduring work of literature. Background On 16 May 1763, as a 22-year-old Scot visiting London, Boswell first met Johnson in the book shop of Johnson's friend Tom Davies. They quickly became friends, although for many years they met only when Boswell visited London in the intervals of his law practice in Scotland. From the age of 20, Boswell kept a series of journals thoroughly detailing his day-to-day experience. This journal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter who specialised in portraits. The art critic John Russell (art critic), John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century, while Lucy Peltz says he was "the leading portrait artist of the 18th-century and arguably one of the greatest artists in the history of art." He promoted the Grand manner, "Grand Style" in painting, which depended on idealisation of the imperfect. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts and was Knight Bachelor, knighted by George III in 1769. He has been referred to as the 'master who revolutionised British Art.' Reynolds had a famously prolific studio that produced over 2,000 paintings during his lifetime. Ellis Waterhouse, EK Waterhouse estimated those works the painter did ‘think worthy’ at ‘hardly less than a hundred paintings which one would like to take into consideration, either for their success, their original ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irene (play)
''Irene'' is a Neoclassical tragedy written between 1726 and 1749 by Samuel Johnson. It has the distinction of being the work Johnson considered his greatest failure. Since his death, the critical consensus has been that he was right to think so. ''Irene'' was Johnson's only play, and was first performed on 6 February 1749 in a production by his friend and former pupil David Garrick. The play was a commercial success and earned Johnson more money than anything else he had written up to that point. It was never revived during his lifetime, and there is no subsequent evidence of any other full-scale productions of ''Irene'' anywhere until 1999. Background Johnson began writing ''Irene'' around 1726 when he first began to work in his father's bookshop. While in the bookshop he befriended Gilbert Walmesley, the Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court of Lichfield. Johnson would discuss ''Irene'' with Walmesley, and read him some of the early drafts. At one point, Walmesley told J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Theory
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social philosophy, and interdisciplinary themes relevant to how people interpret meaning. In the humanities in modern academia, the latter style of literary scholarship is an offshoot of post-structuralism. Searle, John. (1990)"The Storm Over the University" ''The New York Review of Books'', December 6, 1990. Consequently, the word ''theory'' became an umbrella term for scholarly approaches to reading texts, some of which are informed by strands of semiotics, cultural studies, philosophy of language, and continental philosophy, often witnessed within Western canon along with some postmodernist theory. History The practice of literary theory became a profession in the 20th century, but it has historical roots that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tourette Syndrome
Tourette syndrome (TS), or simply Tourette's, is a common neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in childhood or adolescence. It is characterized by multiple movement (motor) tics and at least one vocal (phonic) tic. Common tics are blinking, coughing, throat clearing, sniffing, and facial movements. These are typically preceded by an unwanted urge or sensation in the affected muscles known as a premonitory urge, can sometimes be suppressed temporarily, and characteristically change in location, strength, and frequency. Tourette's is at the more severe end of a spectrum disorder, spectrum of tic disorders. The tics often go unnoticed by casual observers. Tourette's was once regarded as a rare and bizarre syndrome and has popularly been associated with coprolalia (the utterance of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks). It is no longer considered rare; about 1% of school-age children and adolescents are Tourette syndrome#Epidemiology, estimated to hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health Of Samuel Johnson
The health of Samuel Johnson has been a focus of biographical and critical analysis of his life. His medical history was well documented by Johnson and his friends, and those writings have allowed later critics and doctors to infer diagnoses of conditions that were unknown in Johnson's day. Johnson is thought to have had scrofula, poor vision, stroke, gout, depression, Tourette syndrome, and other conditions. His health and conditions had "damaging effects on Johnson's personal and professional lives", likely causing him to lose opportunities to teach at prominent schools, while leading him "towards the invisible occupation of authorship". Medical history Scrofula Upon birth, Johnson did not cry and, with doubts surrounding the newborn's health, his aunt claimed "that she would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street". As it was feared that the baby might die, the vicar of St Mary's was summoned to perform a baptism. Two godfathers were chosen: Samuel Swynfen, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Contemporary Accounts Of Samuel Johnson's Life
This article lists all known accounts of the British writer Samuel Johnson's life written by his contemporaries. They are listed by date of publication. Autobiographies Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Annals The ''Annals: An Account of the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, from his Birth to his Eleventh Year, written by himself'' were written by Samuel Johnson and kept in manuscript form until 1805, when it was printed by Nichols and Son in London. Accounts Biography, as Johnson told the famous Shakespeare critic Edmond Malone, while discussion his own biographies (like his ''Preface to Shakespeare'' and his '' Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets''), must be objective: "If nothing but the bright side of characters should be shewn, we should sit down in despondency, and think it utterly impossible to imitate them in ''anything''. The sacred writers (he observed) related the vicious as well as the virtuous actions of men; which had this moral effect, that it kept mankind f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tories (British Political Party)
The Tories were a loosely organised political faction and later a political party, in the Parliaments of Parliament of England, England, Parliament of Scotland, Scotland, Parliament of Ireland, Ireland, Parliament of Great Britain, Great Britain and the Parliament of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom. They first emerged during the 1679 Exclusion Crisis, when they opposed Whigs (British political party), Whig efforts to exclude James II of England, James, Duke of York from the succession on the grounds of his Catholic Church, Catholicism. Despite their fervent opposition to state-sponsored Catholicism, Tories opposed his exclusion because of their belief that inheritance based on birth was the foundation of a stable society. After the succession of George I of Great Britain, George I in 1714, the Tories had no part in government and ceased to exist as an organised political entity in the early 1760s (although the term continued to be used in subsequent years as a term of self-d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglicanism
Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the largest branches of Christianity, with around 110 million adherents worldwide . Most are members of national or regional Ecclesiastical province#Anglican Communion, ecclesiastical provinces of the international Anglican Communion, one of the largest Christian bodies in the world, and the world's third-largest Christian communion. When united and uniting churches, united churches in the Anglican Communion and the breakaway Continuing Anglican movement were not counted, there were an estimated 97.4 million Anglicans worldwide in 2020. Adherents of Anglicanism are called ''Anglicans''; they are also called ''Episcopalians'' in some countries. The provinces within the Anglican ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lives Of The Most Eminent English Poets
''Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets'' (1779–81), alternatively known by the shorter title ''Lives of the Poets'', is a work by Samuel Johnson comprising short biographies and critical appraisals of 52 poets, most of whom lived during the eighteenth century. These were arranged, approximately, by date of death. From the close of the 18th century, expanded editions and updates of Johnson's work began to appear. Background Johnson began writing individual biographical pieces in 1740, the first being devoted to Jean-Philippe Baratier, Robert Blake, and Francis Drake. In 1744 he wrote his first extended literary biography, the ''Life of Mr Richard Savage'', in honour of a friend who had died the year before. Various accounts are given of how Johnson came to write his ''Lives of the Poets'' during an episode of anti-Scottish sentiment in England. As related in the preface to the 1891 edition of the Lives, Scottish publishers had started to produce editions of the collecte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Journey To The Western Islands Of Scotland
''A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland'' (1775) is a travel narrative by Samuel Johnson about an eighty-three-day journey through Scotland, in particular the islands of the Hebrides, in the late summer and autumn of 1773. The sixty-three-year-old Johnson was accompanied by his thirty-two-year-old friend of many years James Boswell, who was also keeping a record of the trip, published in 1785 as '' A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides''. The two narratives are often published as a single volume, which is beneficial for comparing two perspectives of the same events, although they are very different in approach---Johnson focused on Scotland, and Boswell focused on Johnson. (Boswell went on to write a famous biography of Johnson.) In that biography, Boswell gave the itinerary of the trip as beginning at Edinburgh after landing at Berwick upon Tweed, then to St Andrews, Aberdeen, Inverness, and Fort Augustus. From there they went on to the islands of the Hebrides: Skye, Raasa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
