Лучшие книги Сэмюэла Джонсона

'What then is to be done? said Rasselas; the more we inquire, the less we can resolve.' Rasselas and his companions escape the pleasures of the 'happy valley' in order to make their 'choice of life'. By witnessing the misfortunes and miseries of others they may come to understand the nature of happiness, and value it more highly. Their travels and enquiries raise important practical and philosophical questions concerning many aspects of the human condition, including the business of a poet, the stability of reason, the immortality of the soul, and how to find contentment. Johnson's adaptation of the popular oriental tale displays his…

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), often referred to simply as Dr Johnson, was one of England's greatest literary figures: a poet, essayist, biographer, lexicographer and a critic of English literature. He was also a great wit and prose stylist, well known for his aphorisms. Between 1745 and 1755, Johnson wrote perhaps his best-known work, A Dictionary of the English Language. During the decade he worked on the Dictionary, Johnson, needing to augment his precarious income, also wrote a series of semi-weekly essays under the title The Rambler. These essays, often on moral and religious topics, tended to be more grave than the title of the series…

Lives that Never Grow OldPart of a radical series –edited by Richard Holmes – that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Johnson’s book is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive.When he first came to London, young Samuel Johnson was befriended by the flamboyant poet, playwright and blackmailer, Richard Savage. Walking the backstreets at night, he learned Savage’s extraordinary story – supposedly persecuted by a ‘cruel mother’, sentenced to death for a murder in a brothel, appointed Volunteer Poet Laureate to the Queen, and finally broken and outcast.With this moving and intimate account, Johnson created a brilliant black comedy of 18th-century Grub Street which revolutionised English biography by its psychological realism. Yet Savage’s destructive charm and delusions of grandeur sometimes even threatened to entangle Johnson himself.

If you could tell your mum anything, what would it be?
Samuel Johnson, Amanda Keller, Vika and Linda Bull, Guy Pearce, Elizabeth Tan, Rebecca Gibney, Peter Helliar, Clare Wright, Hilde Hinton, Gillian O’Shaughnessy, Adam Spencer, Brooke Davis, Lawrence Mooney, Patti Newton, Shane Jacobson, Julie Koh, Susie Youssef, Lehmo, Favel Parrett, Matilda Brown and many more …
A heartfelt, honest and ver

Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.Western literary study flows out of eighteenth-century works by Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Frances Burney, Denis Diderot, Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and others. Experience the birth of the modern novel, or compare the development of language using dictionaries and grammar discourses. ++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title.

'If a man is to write A Panegyrick, he may keep vices out of sight; but if he professes to write A Life, he must represent it really as it was.'

In the last of his major writings, Samuel Johnson looked back over the previous two centuries of English Literature in order to describe the personalities as well as the achievements of the leading English poets. The major Lives - of Milton, Dryden, Swift, and Pope - are memorable cameos of the life of writing in which Johnson is as attentive to human frailty as to literary prowess. The shorter Lives preserve some of Johnson's most piercing, critical judgements. Unsentimental, opinionated, and quotable, The Lives of the Poets continues to influence the reputations of the writers concerned. It is one of the greatest works of English criticism, but also one of the most humanly diverting.

This selection of the Lives of ten of the most important poets draws its text from Roger Lonsdale's authoritative complete edition.

This authoritative edition was formerly published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Johnson's poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by essays, criticism, and fiction - to give the essence of his work and thinking. Samuel Johnson's literary reputation rests on such a varied output that he defies easy description: poet, critic, lexicographer, travel writer, essayist, editor, and, thanks to his good friend Boswell, the subject of one of the most famous English biographies. This volume celebrates Johnson's astonishing talent by…

In 1773, the great Samuel Johnson–then 63–and his young friend and future biographer, James Boswell, traveled together around the coast of Scotland, each writing his own account of the 83-day journey. Published in one volume, the very different travelogues of this unlikely duo provide a fascinating picture not only of the Scottish Highlands but also of the relationship between two men whose fame would be forever entwined.

Johnson’s account contains elegant descriptions and analyses of what was then a remote and rugged land. In contrast, the Scottish-born Boswell’s journal of the trip focuses on the psychological landscape of his famously gruff and witty companion, and is part of the material he was already collecting for his future Life of Samuel Johnson, the masterly biography that would make his name.

Read together, the two accounts form both a unique classic of travel writing and a revelation of one of the most famous literary friendships.

Samuel Johnson's A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and James Boswell's The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides recounts their tour of Scotland in 1773. While Johnson focuses on Scotland itself, Boswell is even keener on presenting his friend to the notables of his homeland. Together they form a complete account of a fascinating journey, two intriguing personalities, and of a society coming to terms with itself after a period of drastic upheaval.

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Poems

Сэмюэл Джонсон (1709 - 1784) - английский литературный критик, лексикограф и поэт эпохи Просвещения.
Одной из крупных работ Джонсона было десятитомное «Жизнеописание важнейших английских поэтов» (The Lives of the Poets, 1779-1781), в котором он выступает не только как биограф, но и как критик, ещё не порвавший с теориями классицизма (его оценки Мильтона, Грея и пр.). Эти жизнеописания (во многих случаях, фундаментальный разбор творчества того или иного автора) представляют собой самое остроумное произведение литературной критики XVIII века.
В представленное издание вошло сокращенное издание «Жизнеописания» на языке оригинала.

Samuel Johnson was a well-known literary figure in England. Johnson was an author, lexicographer, biographer and critic. Johnson has been quoted more than any other English author with the exception of Shakespeare. Much of Johnson's fame is attributed to the biography done by Boswell. The biography centers on the latter part of Johnson's life, thus Johnson has been seen more as a gruff society figure than as the struggling and poverty-stricken writer that he was for much of his life. Johnson states that grammar is the art of using language correctly. Grammar can be divided into 4 parts: orthography, etymology, syntax and prosody. "Orthography is the art of combining letters into syllables, and syllables into words. Etymology teaches the deduction of one word from another, and the various modifications by which the sense of the same word is diversified. Prosody comprises orthoepy, or the rules of pronunciation; and orthometry, or the laws of versification."

Следующий из серии сборников, представляющих в переводах составителя самую знаменитую часть творчества поэтов, собранных в уникальных антологиях – «Антологии антологий. Поэты США» и «Антологии антологий. Поэты Великобритании».

Есть в каждой национальной культуре писатели, ставшие классиками у себя на родине и оставшиеся неизвестными за ее пределами. Таков Сэмюэль Джонсон (1709-1784); в Англии доктора Джонсона знает каждый школьник, его высказывания уже двести лет по любому поводу приводятся в парламенте и на улице, в солидных монографиях и на светских приемах, в учебниках и научных спорах. Для англичан доктор Джонсон по сей день остается эстетическим и нравственным авторитетом "номер один": выдержки из его эссе и поэм, жизнеописаний и политических памфлетов, путевых заметок и проповедей цитируются с той же легкостью и охотой, с какой мы цитируем "Горе от ума" или пушкинские стихи. В 1764 году Джонсон создал влиятельный "Литературный клуб", куда входили представители литературной и художественной элиты, в т. ч. близкий друг писателя Джеймс Босуэлл, которому Джонсон в значительной степени обязан своей посмертной славой. Во всем блеске его дарование раскрылось в жанре беседы, афоризма, дошедшего до нас главным образом благодаря "Жизни Сэмюэля Джонсона" (1791). Некоторые из приведенных здесь афоризмов Джонсона взяты из "Рассеянного" и "Бездельника", из предисловия к Шекспиру, из "Жизнеописания английских поэтов", философской повести Джонсона "Расселас, принц Абиссинский", а также из книги "Анекдоты о покойном Сэмюэле Джонсоне", которую выпустила в 1786 году близкий друг писателя Эстер Трейл.