One of the books I read as a child, because I could, was the dictionary. I was hooked right from the start with words like abiogenesis. I never stopped to think about who wrote or created it. I like the quote "I rejoice to concur with the common reader; for by the common sense of readers uncorrupted with literary prejudices". As a songwriter and musician, it is hard to watch performances and listen to music, without being a critic, unless the performances are mesmerizing.
Someone asked about a where to start in reading Johnson. I agree his fine Preface to Shakespeare, as you suggest, is a good start to his literary principles. But to learn about his world, I also suggest "The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped An Age" (2019) by Leo Damrosch. The Club, of course, was the one Joshua Reynolds started in an effort to relieve Johnson's depression and went on to include nearly everybody worth knowing in that era in England. I had studied and read and thought about Johnson all my adult life, had written a thesis on his infamous criticism of Milton's "Lycidas" in "Lives of the Poets." I'd also kept up with the biographies, but "The Club" wakened the world in which he lived and made me think again of all the influences on his life and thought as nothing recent has done. I recommend it highly.
Good article but I am skeptical about the “fucking and drinking” quotation. Johnson scrupulously avoided vulgar language. His most famous reference to his own lustfulness was a remark about “amorous propensities.”
One of the books I read as a child, because I could, was the dictionary. I was hooked right from the start with words like abiogenesis. I never stopped to think about who wrote or created it. I like the quote "I rejoice to concur with the common reader; for by the common sense of readers uncorrupted with literary prejudices". As a songwriter and musician, it is hard to watch performances and listen to music, without being a critic, unless the performances are mesmerizing.
Someone asked about a where to start in reading Johnson. I agree his fine Preface to Shakespeare, as you suggest, is a good start to his literary principles. But to learn about his world, I also suggest "The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped An Age" (2019) by Leo Damrosch. The Club, of course, was the one Joshua Reynolds started in an effort to relieve Johnson's depression and went on to include nearly everybody worth knowing in that era in England. I had studied and read and thought about Johnson all my adult life, had written a thesis on his infamous criticism of Milton's "Lycidas" in "Lives of the Poets." I'd also kept up with the biographies, but "The Club" wakened the world in which he lived and made me think again of all the influences on his life and thought as nothing recent has done. I recommend it highly.
Good article but I am skeptical about the “fucking and drinking” quotation. Johnson scrupulously avoided vulgar language. His most famous reference to his own lustfulness was a remark about “amorous propensities.”