The Literary Criticism of Samuel Johnson

Forms of Artistry and Thought

Inbunden, Engelska, 2023

Av Philip Smallwood, Philip (Birmingham City University) Smallwood

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For Samuel Johnson, poetical judgments were no mere exercise in dry evaluation; rather, they reflected deep emotional responsiveness. In this provocative study, Philip Smallwood argues for experiencing Johnson's critical texts as artworks in their own right. The criticism, he suggests, often springs from emotional sources of great personal intensity and depth, inspiring translation of criticism into poetry and channelling prose's poetic potential. Through consideration of other critics, Smallwood highlights singularities in Johnson's judgments and approach, showing how such judgments are irreducible to philosophical doctrines. 'Ideas', otherwise the material of criticism's propensity to systems and theories, exist for Johnson as feelings that 'slumber in the heart.' Revealing Johnson's humour and intellectual reach, Smallwood frames his criticism in unresolved ironies of time and forms of historical change. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2023-09-21
Mått158 x 235 x 18 mm
Vikt470 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor234
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9781009369985

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Philip Smallwood is Emeritus Professor of English at Birmingham City University. He has written widely about Johnson's criticism and has lectured on his work internationally. Previous books include Johnson Re-Visioned (2001) and Johnson's Critical Presence (2004), which won the Choice 'Outstanding Academic Title' Award for 2005. This was followed by Critical Occasions (2011), his study of eighteenth-century critical history.

Introduction: The criteria of the heart; Part I. Johnson's Criticism and the Forms of Feeling: 1. Johnson's compassion; 2. 'The tears stand in my eyes': Johnson and emotion; Part II. Critical Relations and the Art of Literary History: 3. Petty caviller or 'formidable assailant': Johnson reads Dennis; 4. Readers curious and common: Johnson, Thomas Warton and historical form; Part III. Johnson, Dramatic Poetry and Thinking: 5. Shakespeare, Johnson and philosophy; 6. Two ways of being wise: Johnson, philosophy and Montaigne; Part IV. Time, Truth and History: 7. Johnson and time; 8. Truth, fiction and 'undisputed history'; Part V. Editing Lives and Life: 9. Annotated immortality; 10. Arts of structure and the rhythm of the lives.

'Philip Smallwood has been writing insightfully and eloquently about Samuel Johnson for thirty years. The Literary Criticism of Samuel Johnson confirms his standing as one of our most authoritative, appealing scholars of Johnson and literature. Drawing on a lifetime of reading and thinking Smallwood sensitively explores the artistic implications and human depths of Johnson's engagement with literature and experience – not only within the parameters of Johnson's critical traditions, both European and Classical, but particularly in his enduring concern with action, love, loss, time, death, compassion, happiness, and beginnings and endings, in which his criticism is rooted. Written with an elegance and honesty commensurate with their subject, these essays cohere to disclose a Johnson whose heart and mind inform a literary personality that continues to challenge us intellectually and to resonate with our emotional needs.' Greg Clingham, Professor of English Literature, Bucknell University