Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 (O.S.) 7 September – 13 December 1784), often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer . Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory , and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history".[1] He is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell 's Life of Samuel Johnson .[2]

Johnson was born in Lichfield , Staffordshire, and attended Pembroke College, Oxford for just over a year, before his lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher he moved to London, where he began to write miscellaneous pieces for The Gentleman's Magazine . His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage, the poems "London " and "The Vanity of Human Wishes", and the play Irene.

After nine years of work, Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship."[3] The Dictionary brought Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent British dictionary.[4] His later works included essays, an influential annotated edition of William Shakespeare's plays , and the widely read tale Rasselas. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; Johnson described their travels in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland . Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets , a collection of biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.

Johnson had a tall and robust figure, but his odd gestures and tic s were confusing to some on their first encounter with him. Boswell's Life, along with other biographies , documented Johnson's behaviour and mannerisms in such detail that they have informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS),[5] a condition not defined or diagnosed in the 18th century. After a series of illnesses he died on the evening of 13 December 1784, and was buried in Westminster Abbey . In the years following his death, Johnson began to be recognised as having had a lasting effect on literary criticism, and even as the only great critic of English literature.[6]


The Dictionary

In 1746 a consortium of publishers contracted with Johnson to produce a dictionary; he used the advance money to hire assistants and finished in nine years.

His master work is his Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, it was the first great dictionary of English (or any language), and was based on 100,000 quotations that displayed his complete mastery of the body of English literature as well as the technical sources in law, medicine and engineering. Each word was defined precisely and each supported with quotations showing the historical usages. (A religious man, Johnson refused to quote writers he deemed irreligious.) The Dictionary not only shaped all subsequent dictionaries (such as that by American Noah Webster), but it helped shape and standardize the language and he prepared three new enlarged editions; other editors kept expanding the work in the next century.

By 1764 Johnson was the center of the Literary Club, which featured many of the leading intellectuals and artists of London; he dominated by his quick wit and vast range of knowledge.

Johnson was a conservative supporter of King George III. He wrote "Taxation No Tyranny" (March 1775) to instruct Americans that they should quietly and obediently pay their taxes. Johnson often ridiculed the American Revolution -- as indeed he ridiculed most politicians in London in his brilliant conversations, which were often recorded in the touchstone of all English biographies, James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.

A man of enormous energy despite perpetual poor health and erudition, Johnson was a polymath with an unusually wide range of knowledge. He wrote in nearly all genres, excelling in literary criticism, satire, plays, biography, moral essays, fiction, scholarly editing, travel writing, political pamphleteering, journalism, and of course lexicography. He wrote well both in English and in Latin, composed noteworthy sermons and impressive prayers, and left a candid diary and superb letters.

Bibliography

Works

Biographies

Notes

  1. ↑ Rogers, Pat (2006), "Johnson, Samuel (1709–1784)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.), Oxford University Press, [1], retrieved 25 August 2008
  2. ↑ Bate 1977, p. xix
  3. ↑ Bate 1977, p. 240
  4. ↑ Lynch 2003, p. 1
  5. ↑ Murray 1979 and Stern 2005
  6. ↑ Winters 1943, p. 240

References

  • Ammerman, David (1974). In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-00787-1..
  • Arnold, Matthew (1972). Selected Criticism of Matthew Arnold. New York: New American Library. OCLC 6338231.
  • Bate, Walter Jackson (1977). Samuel Johnson. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-179260-7..
  • Bate, Walter Jackson (1955). The Achievement of Samuel Johnson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. OCLC 355413..
  • Bloom, Harold (1998). Women Memoirists Vol. II. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 74–76. ISBN 0-7910-4655-9..
  • Bloom, Harold (1995). The Western Canon. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-64813-7..
  • Boswell, James (1969). Correspondence and Other Papers of James Boswell Relating to the Making of the Life of Johnson. New York: McGraw-Hill. OCLC 59269..
  • Boswell, James (1986). The Life of Samuel Johnson. New York: Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-043116-0..
  • Clarke, Norma (2000). Dr Johnson's Women. London: Hambledon. ISBN 1-85285-254-2..
  • Clingham, Greg (1997). The Cambridge companion to Samuel Johnson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 161–191. ISBN 0-521-55625-2.
  • Davis, Bertram (1961). The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.. New York: Macmillan Company, vii–xxx. OCLC 739445..
  • DeMaria, Jr., Robert (1994). The Life of Samuel Johnson. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 1-55786-664-3..
  • Fine, LG (May–June 2006). Samuel Johnson's illnesses, S110–4..
  • Greene, Donald (1989). Samuel Johnson: Updated Edition. Boston: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-6962-5..
  • Greene, Donald (2000). Political Writings. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. ISBN 0-86597-275-3..
  • Griffin, Dustin (2005). Patriotism and Poetry in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00959-6..
  • Grundy, Isobel (1997). The Cambridge companion to Jane Austen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 189–210. ISBN 0-521-49867-8.
  • Hawkins, John (1787). Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.. London: J. Buckland. OCLC 173965..
  • Hibbert, Christopher (1971). The Personal History of Samuel Johnson. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-011879-2..
  • Hitchings, Henry (2005). Dr Johnson's Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book that Defined the World. London: John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-6631-2..
  • Hill, G. Birkbeck, editor (1897). Johnsonian Miscellanies. London: Oxford Clarendon Press. OCLC 61906024..
  • Hopewell, Sydney (1950). The Book of Bosworth School, 1320–1920. Leicester: W. Thornley & Son. OCLC 6808364..
  • Johnson, Samuel (1952). Letters. Oxford: Clarendon. ISBN 0-19-818538-3..
  • Johnson, Samuel (1970). Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-281072-3..
  • Johnson, Samuel (2000). Major Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-284042-8..
  • Kammer, Thomas (2007). "Mozart in the Neurological Department: Who has the Tic?", Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists, Part 2. Basel: Karger, 184–92. DOI:10.1159/0000102880. ISBN 978-3-8055-8265-0..
  • Keymer, Thomas (1999). Christopher Smart and the Enlightenment. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-21369-7..
  • Lane, Margaret (1975). Samuel Johnson & his World. New York: Harper & Row Publishers. ISBN 0-06-012496-2..
  • Leavis, FR (1944). Johnson as Critic, 187–204..
  • Lynch, Jack (2003). Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. New York: Walker & Co, 1–21. ISBN 0-8027-1421-8..
  • Lynn, Steven (1997). Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55625-2.
  • Martin, Peter (2008). Samuel Johnson:A Biography. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press. ISBN 978-0-674-03160-9..
  • McHenry, LC Jr (April 1967). Samuel Johnson's tics and gesticulations, 152–68. DOI:10.1093/jhmas/XXII.2.152.
  • Murray, TJ (16 June 1979). Dr Samuel Johnson's movement disorder, 1610–14. DOI:10.1136/bmj.1.6178.1610..
  • Murray, TJ (July–August 2003). Samuel Johnson: his ills, his pills and his physician friends, 368–72..
  • Needham, John (1982). The Completest Mode. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-85224-387-1..
  • Pearce, JMS (July 1994). Doctor Samuel Johnson: 'the Great Convulsionary' a victim of Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome, 396–399..
  • Piozzi, Hester (1951). Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs. Hester Lynch Thrale (Later Mrs. Piozzi) 1776–1809. Clarendon. OCLC 359617..
  • Pittock, Murray (2004). The Cambridge companion to English literature from 1740 to 1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 157–172. ISBN 0-521-00757-7..
  • Rogers, Pat (1995). Johnson and Boswell: The Transit of Caledonia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-818259-7..
  • Sacks, Oliver (19–26 December 1992). Tourette's Syndrome and creativity, 1515–16. DOI:10.1136/bmj.305.6868.1515. “... the case for Samuel Johnson having the syndrome, though [...] circumstantial, is extremely strong and, to my mind, entirely convincing”.
  • Shapiro, Arthur K (1978). Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. New York: Raven Press. ISBN 0-89004-057-5..
  • Skargon, Yvonne (1999). The Importance of Being Oscar: Lily and Hodge and Dr. Johnson. Primrose Academy. OCLC 56542613..
  • Stern JS, Burza S, Robertson MM (January 2005). Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome and its impact in the UK, 12–9. DOI:10.1136/pgmj.2004.023614. “It is now widely accepted that Dr Samuel Johnson had Tourette's syndrome”.
  • Wain, John (1974). Samuel Johnson. Viking Press. OCLC 40318001..
  • Watkins, WBC (1960). Perilous Balance: The Tragic Genius of Swift, Johnson, and Sterne. Walker-deBerry, Inc.. OCLC 40318001..
  • Weinbrot, Howard D. (1997). Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55625-2..
  • Wilson, Edmund (1950). Classics and Commercials. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. OCLC 185571431..
  • Wiltshire, John (1991). Samuel Johnson in the Medical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-38326-9..
  • Winchester, Simon (2003). The Meaning of Everything. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517500-4..
  • Winters, Yvor (1943). The Anatomy of Nonsense. Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions. OCLC 191540..
  • Yung, Kai Kin (1984). Samuel Johnson, 1709–84. Herbert Press. ISBN 0-906969-45-X..
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