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Samuel Johnson (18 September [O.S. 7 September] 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer.
Dr. Samuel Johnson. Originator of the appeal to the stone. The name "appeal to the stone" originates from an argument between Dr. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell over George Berkeley's theory of subjective idealism (known previously as "immaterialism"). Subjective idealism states that reality is dependent on a person's perceptions of the world ...
Johnson's thoughts on biography and on poetry found their union in his understanding of what would make a good critic. His works were dominated with his intent to use them for literary criticism, including his Dictionary to which he wrote: "I lately published a Dictionary like those compiled by the academies of Italy and France, for the use of such as aspire to exactness of criticism, or ...
Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets (1779–81) was possibly the first thorough-going exercise in biographical criticism. [1]Biographical criticism is a form of literary criticism which analyzes a writer's biography to show the relationship between the author's life and their literary works. [2]
Johnson's phrase "in sovereignty, there are no gradations" is widely quoted, [2] [3] and even influenced John Wesley in his "A Calm Address To Our American Colonies". [ 4 ] Johnson won the praise of William Searle Holdsworth for his much clearer description of Parliamentary Sovereignty than the one described by William Blackstone .
A print of Samuel Johnson, based on a portrait by Joshua Reynolds, later used in the 1806 edition of the Lives of the Poets. Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779–81), alternatively known by the shorter title Lives of the Poets, is a work by Samuel Johnson comprising short biographies and critical appraisals of 52 poets, most of whom lived during the eighteenth century.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791) by James Boswell is a biography of English writer and literary critic Samuel Johnson.The work was from the beginning a universal critical and popular success, and represents a landmark in the development of the modern genre of biography.
Samuel Johnson regarded himself as a moralist during his career between 1748 and 1760. Although Johnson wrote a poem, many essays, and a short novel, all of these works are connected by a common intent and each relates to others. The works during this period cannot be separated without disregarding Johnson's major ideas and themes. [1]