Samuel Johnson, Vies des poètes anglais

Professors Denis Bonnecase and Pierre Morère have made a major contribution. Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets (1779-81) are available to French readers for the first time in over 160 years. The Vies des poètes anglais are Britain’s most important omnibus contribution to literary criticism, literary theory, biography, and the development of national poetic canons. They illumine Johnson’s vast contributions to these, and other, aspects of eighteenth-century thought and culture. Johnson was a..

Jonathan Swift: Defeat, Isolation, and the Price of Failed Norms

Starting with Jonathan Swift’s famous letter on the ‘falsity’ of the notion of man as ‘animal rationale’, this article investigates the role of norms and the normative in his works. The essay especially considers A Tale of a Tub, Gulliver’s Travels, the mock Marlborough-eulogy, the final ‘Stella’ poem, and the Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift. The several matters considered include Swift’s major concerns and sources of his own infelicity, such as his recollection of regicide and usurping Dissent; the threat on the established Church by a later new dynasty; his removal from England and modest political career; his fear of Irish Presbyterians and the love-hate relationship with Ireland; his poor health and long periods of physical and psychological discomfort; and the role of the concept of original sin had in his works. It then deals with Swift’s sense of collapse and loss of order before the presumed moral barbarism of his age, and his desire to resist the gloomy negative forces of history, for all of which Swift pays a high price. Finally, the article sees Swift’s greatness in his desire to continue to fight despite his unhappiness with the world; in his portrayal of the consequences of ignoring the very norms which he unpheld; and in his refusal to stop labeling corruption, wherever it might be.

The Courier de l’Europe, The Gordon Riots and Trials, and the Changing Face of Anglo-French Relations

The Courier de l'Europe supported American independence, the free press that flourished in Britain, and the parliamentary system that pitted loyal opposition against the government's ministry. The Courier nonetheless harshly editorialized regarding “Protestant” hostility to the 1778 Catholic amelioration act and London's consequent and destructive Gordon Riots in June of 1780. By 1786 and Lord George's two trials for libel, its judgment of him moves from anger different only in degree from British anger, to rage, name-calling and cries that the maniac belongs in Bedlam. This paper traces some of this movement, suggests that it is a function of the courier's editorial changes from Serres de la Tour and Brissot to Warville, to Charles Thévenau de Morande, and draws inferences regarding French perception of Britain in the later eighteenth century

Samuel Johnson\u27s Charity Sermon for Henry Hervey Aston in St. Paul\u27s Cathedral, May 23, 1745

The layman Samuel Johnson (1709-84) wrote some forty sermons, twenty-eight of which survive. The significant majority of these were purchased by Johnson’s old school mate and prebend of Westminster, John Taylor of Ashbourne. The clergyman or his amanuensis paid a two-guinea fee, copied out the sermon, and then destroyed the manuscript. Johnson\u27s basic mode was the practical sermon. He teaches basic Christian principles\u27 ability to improve daily moral life and thereby improve the possibility for rewards in eternal life. There are exceptions: Johnson\u27s sermon for his friend Henry Hervey Aston, fourth son of John Hervey, Baron Ickworth of Suffolk and first Earl of Bristol. Hervey went nowhere as an army officer, and thanks to family influence was ordained by late September of 1743. His father appointed him Rector of Shotley in Suffolk, whose charms he rejected in favor of London. He married Catherine Aston on 2 March 1730 and in 1744 assumed her name when his brother-in-law\u27s estate passed to her. In spite of limited experience, he was asked to present a sermon at St. Paul\u27s on behalf of the families of deceased Anglican clergymen. Aston probably thought himself neither prepared nor worthy to deliver such a sermon at such a place before the Great and the Good, like John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury, eight bishops including Thomas Secker Bishop of Oxford and in 1758 Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Chief Justice Sir John Willes. Johnson agreed that when addressing “Nobles let fine Periods flow.” His rhetoric thus establishes Aston as the social equal of the grandees in his audience, and thereby his own argument on authority. Johnson, though, flexibly reverts to his “practical” style once he considers the bereft families themselves.“Fine Periods” yield to a request for the Christian act of providing tangible help to bereft widows and children of deceased Anglican clergymen

Eighteenth-century satire : essays on text and context from Dryden to Peter Pindar

Howard D. Weinbrot here collects thirteen of his most important essays on Restoration and eighteenth-century British satire. Divided into sections on 'contexts' and 'texts', the essays range widely and deeply across the spectrum of satiric kinds, satirists, satires, and scholarly and critical problems. In 'Contexts', Professor Weinbrot discusses the pattern of formal verse satire of blame and praise popularized by Dryden in 1693 and influential throughout the next century, challenges the traditional view that Hprace and 'Augustanism' define eighteenth-century satire, and focuses on the vexed question of whether there was indeed a 'persona' or theory of masking at work in eighteenth-century satire. In 'Texts' he deals with several of the most important verse satirists and satires of the period and closely analyses them within their historical and artistic frameworks. Clearly written, learned, and often witty, this book is committed to critical inquiry that respects the integrity of its texts. It also emphasized the breadth of context that enriches our understanding of satire and the relationships among the nurturing culture, the producing poet, the poem producers, and the poem as received in its age