Doctor Johnson: A Study in Eighteenth Century HumanismHarvard University Press, 1923 - 280 pages |
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Page 6
... intrinsic value to the student . But we may go still further than this in asserting his worth to us to - day . Johnson needs to be placed beside Edmund Burke as one of the great conservative forces of the 6 DOCTOR JOHNSON.
... intrinsic value to the student . But we may go still further than this in asserting his worth to us to - day . Johnson needs to be placed beside Edmund Burke as one of the great conservative forces of the 6 DOCTOR JOHNSON.
Page 8
... exegetical commentaries which followed them . The Renaissance scholar - in - us had come to be known as a man of great learning in many branches of knowledge , who by sheer weight of self - assumed authority asserted his.
... exegetical commentaries which followed them . The Renaissance scholar - in - us had come to be known as a man of great learning in many branches of knowledge , who by sheer weight of self - assumed authority asserted his.
Page 9
... asserted his judg- ments in literary and textual criticism , and was prepared to defend them against all comers . None too gentle in his methods , by force of self - assertion and the dogmatism char- acteristic of all who suddenly find ...
... asserted his judg- ments in literary and textual criticism , and was prepared to defend them against all comers . None too gentle in his methods , by force of self - assertion and the dogmatism char- acteristic of all who suddenly find ...
Page 38
... asserting that now the English are before the French in literature . ? A few of Johnson's personal sources concerning French literary history deserve mention . In the preface to his Lives of the Poets he explains that his purpose had ...
... asserting that now the English are before the French in literature . ? A few of Johnson's personal sources concerning French literary history deserve mention . In the preface to his Lives of the Poets he explains that his purpose had ...
Page 40
... assert without fear of contradiction that it was exhaustive in those periods in which one might suppose him to be well equipped , that is to say , in the preceding century and a half . He never revealed any genuine acquaintance with the ...
... assert without fear of contradiction that it was exhaustive in those periods in which one might suppose him to be well equipped , that is to say , in the preceding century and a half . He never revealed any genuine acquaintance with the ...
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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.