Samuel Johnson Neoclassical

Info

- dignified eloquence gave reputation as moral essayist second only to Addison

- friend of Wesley

- monumental pronouncer of conservative common sense

Works

- Dictionary of the English Language - authority on word meaning for more than a century

- The Rambler - representations of evil have place in literature, but only when they serve to reinforce virtue in the manner of negative examples

- "Vice must always disgust."

- Lives of the English Poets - greatest literary achievement

- London - heroic couplet in imitation of Juvenal

- Life of Mr. Richard Savage - first attempt at biography

- The Vanity of Human Wishes - finest poem; one of best of period; 2nd of his Juvenalian satires in heroic couplet

- Rasselas - oriental novel on theme of Ecclesiastes; illustrates terror of expecting happiness from worldly accomplishments and depicts man as creature of perpetual discontent

- Journey to the Western Islands - confirmed unromantic view of primitive life

Terms

- heroic couplet

Citation

Horton, Ronald A. British Literature for Christian Schools. Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 1992.