Johnson's critical presence : image, history, judgement
Smallwood (English, U. of Central England) argues that despite concerned efforts otherwise of late, literary criticism by Samuel Johnson (1709-84) is read by historians of criticism as a body of theory that is now largely unappreciated as criticism and has lost its persuasive power. The reason it ca
XVII, 172 p. ill. 23 cm
9780754633570, 0754633578
1014865882
Contents: Preface; Samuel Johnson, critical presence and the theory of the history of criticism; 'Only designing to live': personal history and the non-reductive context of Johnsonian criticism; Historicization and the judgment of Shakespeare; Historicization and literary pleasure: Johnson reads Cowley; Voice and image: critical comedy, the Johnsonian monster, and the construction of judgment; From image to history: Johnson's criticism and the genealogy of Romanticism; Conclusion: Johnson's transfusion of the critical past and the making of the literary canon; Bibliography; Index.