Reader's Log 4
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The Waning of the Neoclassical Period:
This final stage of the Neoclassical Era is sometimes called, after the name of its most famous literary personality, The Age of Johnson. During the last half of the 18th century, Great Britain prospered. Though it lost the American colonies to a revolution, it expanded its empire elsewhere and spread its military and commercial influence throughout the world. It fought a seemingly unending series of continental wars against France. Its own landscape changed dramatically with the full arrival of the Industrial Revolution. Canals, water-powered factories, coal mines, and iron foundries grew apace.
Conversation as an art form:
In poetry, drama, and criticism, Neoclassical taste had something of a dogmatic or dictatorial aspect about it. Certainly the most influential and characteristic personality of this era was Samuel Johnson, who had no doubts about the propriety of Neoclassical ways of thinking and writing. Johnson was a foremost author in his own right. To his contemporaries his abilities as a conversationalist equaled, if not surpassed, his abilities as a writer. Unquestionably he possessed a brilliance and charisma that overawed those who came into his presence. His was an age that esteemed conversation as an art form. Cultivated men and women strove to speak high ideas with balanced, measured sentences. Johnson excelled in conversation of this sort, uttering brilliant ideas with unhesitating force and elegance. His utterances were often quoted. A few of his companions recorded his statements in great detail. Foremost among these was James Boswell, whose claim to literary fame derives from his relationship with Johnson. Through our consideration of Boswell, we will emphasize Johnson's hypnotic powers of conversation. Following that, we will consider Johnson as a writer.
James Boswell (1740-1795):
Read the editors' introduction, pp. 1273-1274. Read the excerpts in our text from The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., pp. 1274-1281.
Boswell, a Scotsman some thirty years younger than Johnson, became a faithful recorder of Johnson's conversations and sayings. Having ingratiated himself into the great man's favor, he took up the habit of returning to his room and immediately copying into his current journal from memory what Johnson had said. Following Johnson's death, Boswell's various journals became the source for a biography, thought by many to be the greatest biography in the English language, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791). Since, to a considerable degree, this masterful biography is a reproduction of Johnson's conversation, it has something of the rambling, digressive nature. A reader will find treated on a single page ten or fifteen topics related to each other only by the fact that Johnson and his friends conversed about them. Remember that this age esteemed conversation as an art. Remember too that conversation was Johnson's chief recreation. Talking in company was what he liked best to do. Unquestionably Boswell himself must be regarded as one of the most considerable writers of the late Neoclassical Era, an observer and stylist worthy of his famous subject.
READER'S LOG. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., "Johnson's Early Years. Marriage," p. 1275. This passage informs us that Johnson's wife was twice his age at the time of their marriage. It was apparently a satisfactory marriage, and Johnson would mourn deeply at his wife's death. The first paragraph of this section describes Johnson's "morbid melancholy," a condition that would today be called chronic clinical depression. Quote the sentence beginning, "While he was at Lichfield...."
READER'S LOG. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., "The Letter to Chesterfield," pp. 1276-1278. In this episode, Johnson is said to have hoped to apply for financial support from the wealthy Lord Chesterfield, a common practice of struggling authors of this era. Rebuffed and humiliated, Johnson withdrew from the attempt, and when much later his dictionary was about to appear and Lord Chesterfield made ingratiating overtures to him in hopes he would dedicate the work to Chesterfield, Johnson wrote the famous letters which Boswell quotes here. From p. 1276, summarize the incident that offended Johnson so deeply.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).
Read the editors' introduction, pp. 1196-1198.
Having married a widow twenty years his senior in his home city of Lichfield, the young Johnson soon migrated to London where he supported himself and his wife by poorly remunerated writing for Grub Street. It was not until his poem The Vanity of Human Wishes appeared in 1749 that his reputation as a serious writer and literary critic began to grow. When his large two volume dictionary appeared in 1755, his preeminence was assured; thereafter, he was the undisputed arbiter of English literary taste until his death. His conservative influence tended to preserve neoclassical literary values longer than they otherwise might have lasted. You have already had an introduction to his conversation. Following is an introduction to his writing. Keep in mind that Johnson, a linguistic genius, knew many languages, both modern and ancient. He did not regard Latin as a dead language and actually wrote many personal poems in Latin.
READER'S LOG. The Vanity of Human Wishes, pp. 1198-1206. Also read the editors' introduction, 1198. You will recognize skillful heroic verse in this poem, one of the marks of the Neoclassical style. Another Neoclassical trait lies in the fact that this poem is an intended imitation, a recognized Neoclassical genre. Although Johnson adapts the genre to the history of his own nation, much in it is influenced by the original model, a poem in Latin by the Roman satirist Juvenal. Please quote here the three Juvenalian qualities that the editors say in their introduction Johnson sought to achieve through English in this poem.
READER'S LOG. The Vanity of Human Wishes, lines 255-368, pp. 1204-1206. As the title of the poem indicates (vanity as used here means futility), Johnson's pessimistic theme is the inevitability of frustration and defeat in human life. Johnson considers the fall of such notable figures from English and European history as Wolsey, Villiers, Laud, Charles of Sweden, and the Elector of Bavaria. Beginning with line 255, Johnson begins to consider the ills and frustrations not merely of great historical figures but of humanity in general. Please read from here to the end of the poem with special care. In a sentence or two, summarize lines 255-266.
READER'S LOG. The Vanity of Human Wishes, p. 1206. This poem is very characteristic of Johnson. It expresses his often observed melancholy and pessimism, yet ends on a note of religious affirmation. Having reminded his reader over and over of the vanity (futility) of human desire and aspiration, Johnson asks in line 348 whether one should therefore never pray to God for blessings. From line 349 to the end of the poem, paraphrase in your own words the answer he gives to that question.
Johnson and Journalism in the Neoclassical Era:
The opening of the 18th century saw the rise of periodicals in England, a fact indicative of the spread of literacy, wealth, and improvements in the technology of paper making and printing. A periodical, unlike a book, appears at regular intervals. At Shakespeare's death in 1616 there were no periodicals in England. By 1709 there were at least 18 newspapers in London. The Neoclassical periodical was not a massive publication. Many were published on a single sheet; some were multi-sheet pamphlets. Single sheet publications and pamphlets appearing only once, rather than periodically, were also abundant, making a convenient and inexpensive way of publishing opinions and sensational stories. Be aware that, in addition to print (which was set by hand), etched pictorial representations were possible. If made by skilled artists, these representations could be remarkably detailed and realistic, as we have already seen in the etchings of Hogarth.
The collective periodical industry came to be called Grub Street because at one time periodicals had been published in a London street of that name. The term implied writing of a poor quality. It is true that many nameless writers of mediocre ability called hacks eked out a sparse living contributing to periodicals. However, most of the famous 18th century authors whom we consider in this course also took a turn at writing for periodicals at some point during their careers. Among these authors is Samuel Johnson.
The 18th century invented the device of a fictitious persona who presided over a particular periodical, supposedly roaming London in search of matters to comment on and writing all the articles and essays that might appear in that periodical. Although they did not invent the concept of the persona, Richard Steele and Joseph Addison made the concept famous, not merely by creating two vivid personae, Mr. Bickerstaff and Mr. Spectator, but by writing a host of brilliant periodical essays that brought this genre to a widely recognized perfection. Steele's persona, Mr. Bickerstaff, was the supposed proprietor of a periodical named The Tatler, which Steele founded in 1709 and to which he contributed many essays. He enlisted his friend Joseph Addison to write essays as well. The title of The Tatler suggests that it will take on a gossipy tone, reporting on the foibles and eccentricity to be observed in English society. Although it lasted only two years, this thrice-weekly journal published 271 numbers, which, collected as a four-volume work, attracted buyers for the rest of the century. Several years later Steele and Addison founded The Spectator, during whose brief life hundreds of high quality essays appeared, authored by the founders and many of their friends. These essays, too, were republished in volumes and continued to please readers for nearly two centuries. Many readers took these essays as a model for a perfect prose style. It is generally conceded that Addison was a more gifted writer than Steele. His prose is greatly admired even today for its unerring cadences and precise diction.
In 1749, following the tradition of Addison and Steele, Johnson founded a twice weekly periodical, The Rambler, for which he wrote essays. His readers quickly began to compare him with Addison and Steele of earlier fame. Today Johnson is generally esteemed with them as one of the three great periodical essayists of the Neoclassical era. Some years later Johnson published a series of essays under the title of The Idler as a section of an established periodical.
The essay, it should be said, is one of the major genres of the Neoclassical Era. By definition, an essay is brief, personal and rambling in its organization, and tentative in its assertions. Though some authors, most notably Pope, used the designation of essay for their long discursive poems, the genre is typically in prose.
READER'S LOG. The Rambler No. 4, On Fiction, pp. 1242-1246. Johnson says that the novels of his own time "exhibit life in its true state," the quality we now call realism. He seems to prefer this over the improbable, fantastic quality of the romances of the previous age. However, assuming readers will be more likely to pattern their own behavior on realistic fiction, he believes the authors of realistic fiction should be very selective in the kinds of behavior they depict. Reading particularly from the lower middle of p. 1244 to the end of the essay, summarize the kind of behavior which Johnson says should be depicted in fiction.
READER'S LOG. The Rambler No. 60, On Biography, p. 1247. From the first full paragraph at the top of this page, summarize Johnson's attitude toward biography as a literary genre.
READER'S LOG. The Rambler No. 60, On Biography, pp. 1246-1249. Note Johnson's frequent allusion to classical authors and ideas. Note also, the length and complexity of his sentences. Neoclassical prose style in general favored such sentences. Take a particular look at the brief next-to-last paragraph on p. 1246, where Johnson declares biography to be one of the genres of writing most "worthy of cultivation." This paragraph consists of a single sentence. It is a compound-complex sentence; very long; balanced (that is, the second half approximates the length and complexity of the first half); advancing by means of inserted modifiers and repeated clause structures; and characterized by formal, abstract diction (word choice). In contrast to the complex formalities of Neoclassical sentences is the prose style of the 20th and early 21st century in which we now live. An extreme practitioner of the modern simple, unadorned prose style is Ernest Hemingway, whose sentences were brief, simple, and composed of concrete diction. As your response, comment as to whether you can see any advantages in modeling your own prose style on an author like Johnson rather than on a 20th century author.
Johnson's Dictionary.
READER'S LOG. A Dictionary of the English Language, pp. 1249-1255. Read the editors' introduction, p. 1249. Even today Johnson's dictionary impresses those who examine it as a major intellectual achievement. That he, its sole author and editor, could compile a work of such magnitude is indicative of the vast stretch of his mind. Following its appearance in 1755, Johnson was more than famous, becoming a figure of almost universal veneration. The dictionary was in part a result of the conviction of the Neoclassical Era that it had brought English to a near perfection and that further changes should be resisted in the name of correctness. It may interest you to know that we owe our modern assumption that there is a correct standard for spelling and grammar to the Neoclassical Era. Shakespeare's era paid little attention to correctness. The excerpts here include excerpts from Johnson's preface and a list of a few of the words he defined. In a sentence or two, summarize what seems to be Johnson's attitude toward the inevitable changes of language as expressed in the first two full paragraphs at the top of p. 1252.
READER'S LOG. A Dictionary of the English Language, pp. 1249-1255. Reviewing actual words from the dictionary, beginning on p. 1253, you will notice that Johnson includes (1) the word itself in capital letters, with an accent mark to guide pronunciation; (2) a numbered list of definitions; and (3) examples of each definition in the context of a quotation from a famous English author. Your editors have left out a fourth ingredient, an etymology or derivation of each word. Note how Johnson injects his own bias and sense of humor into some of the definitions. The definition of the word lexicographer is a wry comment on himself; the definition of oats is a prejudicial comment on the Scottish, whom Johnson did not like; the definitions of the English political parties Tory and Whig are a biased reflection of his own Tory politics. Comment on the definition you find most interesting, telling why.
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, pp. 1207-1241
Read the editors' introduction, pp. 1207-1208. This work of fiction, published in 1759, is a novella, between a short story or tale and a novel in length. Johnson wrote this work in extreme haste to pay for his mother's funeral. It lacks the abundant action and broad characterization which we expect in a modern novel and which, indeed, we can find in the Neoclassical novels by Richardson, Fielding, and Austen named above. Its thin, digressive plot merely provides Johnson a frame for expressing his opinions on the futility of the human search for happiness.
Rasselas, a prince, has been sequestered from the world at large in an earthly paradise called Happy Valley. Bored by this confining paradise, he escapes to Cairo with his mentor, the philosopher Imlac, and his sister Nekayah. Together they inquire into various modes of life, each of which is described as superior to the others as a means of procuring happiness. Each way of life proves insufficient and deceptive. Over and over Rasselas is lead to the conclusion that human happiness is not possible, and in the end he and his companions retreat to their confining paradise. In essence, this novella repeats the theme of Johnson's poem The Vanity of Human Wishes. This novella becomes, then, one of the most famous counter statements to the optimism of the Neoclassical Era that you sampled in Pope's An Essay on Man.
READER'S LOG. Rasselas, Chapter 3, pp. 1211-1212. Note the ironic title of this chapter, "The Wants of Him That Wants Nothing." Assured by his mentor, the philosopher Imlac, that he has everything he could desired in this enclosed paradise, Rasselas says near the end of the chapter, "Give me something to desire." In your own words tell what it is that Imlac inadvertently gives him to desire.
READER'S LOG. Rasselas, Chapter 10, pp. 1214-1216. While seeking to entertain Rasselas by recounting his own travels, Imlac paused to discourse on various topics. In this chapter, his ruminations amount to a brief essay on the nature of poetry, a sample of the heavy load of exposition and didactic exhortation which this novella bears. You may accept that these ideas resemble Johnson's own on the subject. Quote a sentence from the bottom half of p. 1215 that comes close to summarizing the qualities of a true poet.
READER'S LOG. Rasselas, Chapter 19, "A Glimpse of Pastoral Life," pp. 1222-1223. As you see, beginning with Chapter 15, p. 1217, Rasselas, Imlac, and Nekayah escape from Happy Valley and make their way to Cairo, Egypt, where they take quarters and begin an investigation into what makes people happy. Among the many persons and ways of life which they investigateââ‰ÂÂand find disillusioningââ‰ÂÂis that described in Chapter 15. In your own words, state their expectations while investigating country life and the reason those expectations were not fulfilled.
READER'S LOG. Rasselas, Chapter 22, "The Happiness of a Life Led According to Nature," pp. 1225-1227. In the middle of p. 1226, you will see that Rasselas is impressed by a philosopher who declares that happiness is a result of living according to nature. In your own words, tell Rasselas's reason for becoming disillusioned with this claim.
READER'S LOG. Rasselas, Chapter 44, "The Dangerous Prevalence of Imagination," pp. 1235-1237. In this chapter Imlac expounds on the absurd and dangerous effects of "visionary schemes," as he calls them in the closing sentence of the chapter. These schemes, he says, are the result of the faculty of imagination, or fancy, overpowering reason within an individual. Given the approach of the Romantic Era, which will emphasize emotion and imagination over reason, this declaration by Johnson of the Neoclassical attitude on the issue is very interesting. Quote here the entire opening paragraph of this chapter at the bottom of p. 1235 and top of p. 1236.
