1st Edition

Samuel Johnson in Perspective Poetry, Criticism and Cultural Relations

Edited By Philip Smallwood Copyright 2027
246 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This expert resource offers original and fascinating insight into the life and work of Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). It examines the many ways in which Johnson may be enjoyed, and explores the reasons why his writings retain their appeal to the ‘common reader’. Samuel Johnson worked across a variety of genres—essays, poetry, fiction, criticism, biography, scholarly editing, lexicography,... Read more

List of Contributors

Preface and Acknowledgements

A Note on Major Editions Cited and Short Titles

 

Introduction: ‘Johnson Studies’ and the Common Reader

PHILIP SMALLWOOD

 

Part I: Poetry and the Criticism of Poetry:

1.‘Perpetually a Poet’: Johnson’s Poetry in Verse and Prose

PHILIP SMALLWOOD

2. ‘Pointed axioms and acute replies’: the Fascination of Johnson’s Overlooked ‘Lives’

ADAM ROUNCE

3. Richard Hurd’s Select Works of Cowley (1772) and Johnson’s Art of Selection

MICHAEL EDSON

4. Johnson’s Dryden

DAVID HOPKINS

5. ‘Prior is never low, nor very often sublime’: Matthew Prior, Johnson, and Hard Work versus Inspiration

CONRAD BRUNSTRÖM

6. ‘Splendid Amplifications’: Johnson’s Life of Pope

 

IAN CALVERT

 

Part II: Cultural Relations:

7. Athwart the Enlightenment: Samuel Johnson’s Philosophical and Intellectual Engagements

FRANS DE BRUYN

8. ‘Poor Bear’: Lady Anne Lindsay Barnard’s Dr. Johnson

GREG CLINGHAM

9. ‘I smell you in the dark’: Johnson, Orange Peel and the Art of Biography

KATE CHISHOLM

10. Johnson and the Definition of Silence

ANTHONY HOWE

11. Boswell’s Authority as Reader and Critic of Johnson’s Works

PAUL TANKARD

12. Johnson and the Victorians

PHIL JONES

13. Old House, New Views: A Curator’s Perspective

CELINE LUPPO MCDAID

Bibliography

Index

Biography

Philip Smallwood is Emeritus Professor of English at Birmingham City University and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, UK. His latest prize-winning monograph, The Literary Criticism of Samuel Johnson, was published in 2023.