Doctor Johnson: A Study in Eighteenth Century HumanismHarvard University Press, 1923 - 280 pages |
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Page 6
... acceptance of the Establishment in our religious lives , seemed to him fun- damental in any sound social philosophy . So too in literature his very prejudices grew out of his refusal to question what experience had proved to be wise and ...
... acceptance of the Establishment in our religious lives , seemed to him fun- damental in any sound social philosophy . So too in literature his very prejudices grew out of his refusal to question what experience had proved to be wise and ...
Page 8
... accepted the great body of critical doctrine which had been built up before his time . No man can be studied quite free from his environment , least of all such a one as Johnson , who contains in himself so much of the past and upon ...
... accepted the great body of critical doctrine which had been built up before his time . No man can be studied quite free from his environment , least of all such a one as Johnson , who contains in himself so much of the past and upon ...
Page 10
... accepted authority on mat- ters of public taste , even to a degree on matters of national policy and statesmanship.1 His learning was not exclusively literary , and Boswell records for us that he was versed in law , in medicine , even ...
... accepted authority on mat- ters of public taste , even to a degree on matters of national policy and statesmanship.1 His learning was not exclusively literary , and Boswell records for us that he was versed in law , in medicine , even ...
Page 52
... accepted as its own the critical stan- dards set by the other . Even more should this be true of the critic who performed this same service for his own age . Quin- tilian's writings must have become a part of Johnson's intel- lectual ...
... accepted as its own the critical stan- dards set by the other . Even more should this be true of the critic who performed this same service for his own age . Quin- tilian's writings must have become a part of Johnson's intel- lectual ...
Page 54
... accepted channels . The age of experiment and expansion , after new modes of thought had been discovered and tested , now passed into one of rigid contraction in all lines of activity . What men conceived to be the eternal principles of ...
... accepted channels . The age of experiment and expansion , after new modes of thought had been discovered and tested , now passed into one of rigid contraction in all lines of activity . What men conceived to be the eternal principles of ...
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Addison ancient appear applied Aristotle assertion Baudius beauties biographical blank verse Boileau Boswell censure century character classical criticism common sense declares delight diction Dictionary doctrine drama Dryden edition editors eighteenth-century elegance English Erasmus example expression faults French genius Greek Horace human humanist Ibid images imagination imitation intellectual Isaac Casaubon Johnson Joseph Scaliger judgment kind King Lear language Latin learning lines literary literature Lives Lycidas manner merit metaphysical poets Milton mind modern moral nature neo-classical neo-classical criticism neo-classicism notes observation opera opinion Ossian Paradise Lost passions pastoral perhaps Petrarch plays poem poet's poetical poetry Pope Pope Gregory XIII Pope's praise Preface to Shakespeare principles Quintilian Rambler reader reason references remarks revival romantic rules Rymer says Scaliger scenes sentiments Shakespeare sublime taste Theocritus Thomas Warton thought tion true truth versification Virgil virtue Voltaire words writing τὸ
Popular passages
Page 107 - True wit is nature to advantage dress'd ; What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd ; Something, whose truth convinc'd at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind.
Page 203 - Yet great labour directed by great abilities is never wholly lost: if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth: if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan it was at least necessary to read and think.
Page 136 - ... the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination, and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveler is hasting to his wine and the mourner burying his friend...
Page 157 - A play in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good because it is a just representation of the common events of human life: but since all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily be persuaded that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or that if other excellencies are equal the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.
Page 71 - The Pythagorean scale of numbers was at once discovered to be perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet know not to transcend the common limits of human intelligence, but by remarking, that nation after nation, and century after century, has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new-name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments.
Page 134 - A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight that he was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.
Page 138 - Delusion, if delusion be admitted, has no certain limitation. If the spectator can be once persuaded that his old acquaintance are Alexander and Caesar, that a room illuminated with candles is the plain of Pharsalia, or the bank of Granicus, he is in a state of elevation above the reach of reason or of truth, and from the heights of empyrean poetry may despise the circumscriptions of terrestrial nature.
Page 37 - Great thoughts are always general, and consist in positions not limited by exceptions, and in descriptions not descending to minuteness.
Page 76 - Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry 'Hold, hold!
Page 65 - Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied.