Samuel Johnson

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Standard Name: Johnson, Samuel
Used Form: Dr Johnson
Arriving in eighteenth-century London as one more young literary hopeful from the provinces, SJ achieved such a name for himself as an arbiter of poetry, of morality (through his Rambler and other periodical essays and his prose fiction Rasselas), of the language (the Dictionary), and of the literary canon (his edition of Shakespeare and the Lives of the English Poets) that literary history has often typecast him as hidebound and authoritarian. This idea has been facilitated by his ill-mannered conversational dominance in his late years and by the portrait of him drawn by the hero-worshipping Boswell . In fact he was remarkable for his era in seeing literature as a career open to the talented without regard to gender. From his early-established friendships with Elizabeth Carter and Charlotte Lennox to his mentorship of Hester Thrale , Frances Burney , and (albeit less concentratedly) of Mary Wollstonecraft and Henrietta Battier , it was seldom that he crossed the path of a woman writer without friendly and relatively egalitarian encouragement.

Connections

Connections Sort descending Author name Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Carter
The reviewers of this collection were appreciative; the Critical's high praise included, however, heavy emphasis on gender.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
12 (1762): 180-3
This monthly number of the Critical appeared with its date (1762) misprinted as 1761...
Intertextuality and Influence Anne Grant
As well as her central allusion to Barbauld, AG claims authority for her work by quoting Milton on her title-page and later as well, and by echoing, in her deliberately derivative, that is traditional style...
Intertextuality and Influence Jane Austen
She applies to her friend a remark about Samuel Johnson from Boswell 's Life: that her death left no-one living who resembled her.
Austen, Jane. Minor Works. Editor Chapman, Robert William, Oxford University Press.
440-2
Intertextuality and Influence Jane Collier
Johnson incorporated three quotations from the Art of Tormenting in his Dictionary—a marker of deeply the book impressed him.
Brewer, Charlotte. “’A Goose Quill or a Gander’s?’: Female Writers in Johnson’s Dictionary”. Samuel Johnson: The Arc of the Pendulum <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl="m">Dictionary</span>, edited by Freya Johnston and Lynda Mugglestone, Oxford University Press, pp. 120-39.
124, 129
Intertextuality and Influence Mrs Martin
Each volume has an introductory chapter, addressing the reader in the manner of, and with some images borrowed from, Henry Fielding or Laurence Sterne (the latter, indeed, is mentioned by name). MM hopes her reader...
Intertextuality and Influence Ellis Cornelia Knight
In her introduction toDinarbas, ECK indicates that her idea for the work arose from Sir John Hawkins 's claim that Samuel Johnson had intended to write a sequel to Rasselas, in which...
Intertextuality and Influence Catherine Talbot
This essay, an answer to number 11, which had taken the form of a letter from To-day, displays CT 's characteristic whimsical ingenuity. Night, claiming to be the elder sister of Today, defends dark...
Intertextuality and Influence Sarah Green
This preface is headed by two Latin words (one with a faulty grammatical ending) from Ovid 's description of chaos. SG slams both male and female novelists, chiefly authors of gothic or horrid novels and...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Helme
The original title-page quotes Johnson 's Rasselas on the way that the enchantments of fancy belong to the time of youth and vanish with it.
Helme, Elizabeth. Instructive Rambles in London, and the Adjacent Villages. T. N. Longman and E. Newbery.
title-page
A preface declares EH 's intention of blending instruction...
Intertextuality and Influence Frances Arabella Rowden
The notes explain many classical allusions and some to more recent literature. The Maid of Greenland, for instance, is Ajut, in Johnson 's Rambler essays 186 and 187.
Rowden, Frances Arabella. The Pleasures of Friendship. A Poem.
104
Intertextuality and Influence Frances Burney
In April 1780 the author's cousin Edward Francisco Burney illustrated Evelina in three stained drawings. The one for volume two shows the heroine in her mood of depression after returning home from her visit...
Intertextuality and Influence Sarah Murray
The Guide to Scotland opens with instructions: Provide yourself with a strong roomy carriage, and have the springs well corded; have also a stop-pole and strong chain to the chaise. Take with you linch-pins, and...
Intertextuality and Influence Hester Lynch Piozzi
Hester Lynch Salusbury (later HLP ) kept a diary while still in her teens, and wrote remarkable poems and translations. Many manuscripts of her early poems bear the later annotations of Samuel Johnson . Some...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Cooper
EC 's book was generally respected. It was praised by Mary Scott , and had a significant impact on Thomas Chatterton
Bronson, Bertrand H. “Chattertoniana”. Modern Language Quarterly, Vol.
11
, pp. 417-24.
417
as well as, perhaps, on Johnson 's format in his Lives of the...
Intertextuality and Influence Georgiana Fullerton
In Fullerton's version Charlotte Christine was raised in an idyllic childhood as a wife for royalty before finding herself abused, isolated, and threatened in the Russian Court, caught amidst intrigues between her husband and father-in-law...

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