Johnson's Critical Presence: Image, History, JudgementAshgate, 2004 - 172 Seiten Samuel Johnson remains one of the most frequently discussed and cited of the eighteenth-century critics; but historians of criticism have invariably interpreted his work within conventions that have allowed for little evaluative commerce between the needs of the critical present and the voices of the critical past. Smallwood's argument is that Johnson's alienation from the modern critical scene stems in part from historians' tendency to tell the story of criticism as a narrative of improvement. The image of Johnson conceived by his antagonists in the eighteenth century has been perpetuated by romanticism, by nineteenth-century representational routines and mediated to the present day, most recently, by varieties of 'radical theory'. In Johnson's Critical Presence Smallwood offers a new account of Johnson's major critical writings conceived according to a different kind of historical potential. He suggests that the historicization of eighteenth-century criticism can best be understood in the light of the 'dialogic' and 'translational' historiographies of Collingwood, Gadamer and Ricoeur, and that the explanatory contexts of Johnson's criticism must include poetry in addition to theory; in this his study seeks to displace both the history of ideas as the leading paradigm for the history of criticism and to question the developmental narrative on which it relies. By in-depth analysis of Johnson's response to Shakespeare's plays and to the poetry of Abraham Cowley, Smallwood constructs a non-reductive context of emotional experience for Johnson's criticism. This embraces the dynamic satirical caricatures by James Gillray of Johnson as critic, the irony of Johnson's critical affinities with the major romantics, and is set against twentieth-century responses to the literary 'canon'. Smallwood argues that not only Johnson's emotional sensitivities, but also the ironic voices within the critical text itself, must be fully appreciated before Johnson's current relevance, or even his historical value, can be grasped. |
Im Buch
Ergebnisse 1-3 von 46
Seite ix
... ideas ( and any kind of narrative development grounded on this ) . Thus , by a reference back to the form , tone , and terminology of the Johnsonian text , different contexts can be construed and brought into play ; these can be related ...
... ideas ( and any kind of narrative development grounded on this ) . Thus , by a reference back to the form , tone , and terminology of the Johnsonian text , different contexts can be construed and brought into play ; these can be related ...
Seite 5
... ideas . The classification and emplotment of largely redundant theories within intellectual history , playing no immediate role in critical speculations or decisions of the present day , will suggest only ' the difference that separates ...
... ideas . The classification and emplotment of largely redundant theories within intellectual history , playing no immediate role in critical speculations or decisions of the present day , will suggest only ' the difference that separates ...
Seite 96
... ideas that their critical texts contain is a fact of the raw material , the primary data , of the history of criticism . · We have seen that comedy pervades Johnson's critical writings ( and his idea of the critic ) from his earliest ...
... ideas that their critical texts contain is a fact of the raw material , the primary data , of the history of criticism . · We have seen that comedy pervades Johnson's critical writings ( and his idea of the critic ) from his earliest ...
Inhalt
Personal History and the NonReductive | 15 |
Historicization and the Judgment of Shakespeare | 38 |
Johnson Reads Cowley | 64 |
Urheberrecht | |
5 weitere Abschnitte werden nicht angezeigt.
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
Johnson's Critical Presence: Image, History, Judgment Philip Smallwood Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2017 |
Johnson's Critical Presence: Image, History, Judgment Philip Smallwood Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2017 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
according appear attention authors called Cambridge canon century chapter characters classical collection comedy common conception context Cowley Cowley's critical history critical past cultural death detail distinction drama Dryden eighteenth-century emotional English Essay example experience expression final historians history of criticism human ideas imagination important James Gillray John Johnson's criticism Johnsonian judgment kind language later lines literary literary criticism literature Lives London manners meaning mind Miscellanies Mistress moral narrative nature notes observation once particular passage passions past play pleasure poem poet poetical poetry Pope Pope's praise Preface present prose Rambler reader reason reference reflects relation remarks romantic Samuel Johnson satirical scenes seems seen sense Shakespeare suggest theory things thought tradition tragedy translation University Press verse vols whole Wordsworth writes written wrote