Synopses & Reviews
This book offers an analysis of the life and thought of Samuel Johnson from a historian's viewpoint, which reverses the orthodoxy that has dominated the subject for over thirty years. J.C.D. Clark presents here a Johnson strikingly different from the apolitical, pragmatic and eccentric figure who emerges from the pages of most students of English literature. Johnson's commitments and conflicts in religion and politics are reconstructed; his role in the literary dynamics of his age is revealed against a new context for English cultural politics between the Restoration and the age of Romanticism.
Review
'This is a stimulating and cogent work which offers a refreshing and provocative re-appraisal of some central features of Johnson's life and work.' David Nokes, The Times Literary Supplement
Synopsis
An analysis of the life and thought of the writer Samuel Johnson from an historian's viewpoint.
Synopsis
This book offers the first analysis of the life and thought of the writer Samuel Johnson from an historianâs viewpoint, reversing the orthodoxy which has dominated the subject for over thirty years. Jonathan Clark, who has written extensively on English and American religion, ideology and politics in the eighteenth century, presents here a Johnson strikingly different from the apolitical, pragmatic and eccentric figure who emerges from the pages of most students of English literature. The book will therefore be of interest not only to Johnsonians but to historians of ideas and students of English literature.
Synopsis
This book offers the first analysis of the life and thought of the writer Samuel Johnson from an historianâs viewpoint, reversing the orthodoxy which has dominated the subject for over thirty years. Jonathan Clark presents here a strikingly different Johnson from the usual apolitical, pragmatic and eccentric figure of the standard accounts.
Synopsis
Depicting his role in the literary dynamics of his age against a new context for English cultural politics, this analysis reconstructs Johnson's commitments and conflicts in religion and politics. It presents a strikingly different writer from the apolitical, pragmatic and eccentric figure of English literature.
Table of Contents
List of illustrations; Preface; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Politics, literature and the culture of humanism; 2. Johnson and the Anglo-Latin tradition; 3. The political culture of Oxford University, 1715-1768; 4. Johnson's career and the question of oaths, 1709-1758; 5. Johnson and the nonjurors; 6. Johnson's political conduct, 1737-1760; 7. Johnson's political opinions, 1760-1784; 8. Johnson's writings, 1760-1781; 9. 'Sophistry', 'indiscretion', 'falsehood': the denigration of Samuel Johnson, 1775-1832.