If I were asked to introduce a newcomer to Dr. Johnson, the first book I would suggest he read is his final major work, Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779-81). Johnson reviews the lives and works of fifty-two poets. Even novice readers will know the big names Johnson takes on – Milton, Dryden, Pope, Swift. But part of the enduring charm of the book is Johnson’s reclamation of minor, half-forgotten figures. Take Johnson’s assessment of the euphoniously named Thomas Tickell:
“[T]he
versification is smooth and elegant, but the fiction unskilfully compounded of
Grecian Deities and Gothick Fairies. Neither species of those exploded Beings
could have done much; and when they are brought together, they only make each
other contemptible. To Tickell, however, cannot be refused a high place among
the minor poets; nor should it be forgotten that he was one of the contributors
to the Spectator. With respect to his
personal character, he is said to have been a man of gay conversation, at least
a temperate lover of wine and company, and in his domestick relations without
censure.”
Johnson
works hard to be fair: “a high place among minor poets.” Think of how many
poets we revere who can be stuffed under that umbrella. There’s no shame in
such a judgment, though to contemporary tastes Tickell's verse would be a tough sell.
One mark of
a major literary critic is that even when he is wrong in his judgments, he is usefully,
interestingly wrong. In Boswell’s account Johnson is wrong about Sterne, for
instance: “Nothing odd will do long. Tristram
Shandy did not last.” Johnson thus reminds us to beware of novelty for its own
sake. There has to be more to the work than mere eccentricity. Here is Johnson
on Dryden:
“Perhaps no
nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with such variety of
models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion of our metre, the
refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our sentiments. By
him we were taught ‘sapere et fari,’
to think naturally and express forcibly.”
In his
biography of Johnson, John Wain writes: “The Lives of the Poets is a work of memory, judgement, and love, not a
work of research.” The lessons Johnson learned when writing his periodical
essays he applies to his great poetical forebears.
Johnson was
born on this date, September 18, in 1709.
3 comments:
Until this piece, I had never considered that we can find value in other's mistakes. If someone is wrong, they are wrong. I am chewing on an enjoying your phrase "usefully, and interestingly wrong."
Shortly before he died, he said what I think is the bravest, noblest utterance ever to pass human lips. When told by his doctor that he had no hope of recovery, he said, "Then I'll take no more physic, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded."
--a work of memory, judgement, and love, not a work of research--
Universities may receive financial support because of their associations, which seem to be ever less deserved, with regard to the first three or at least the last-named. In the Humanities today, I fear that the first three are not rarely replaced by forgetfulness, willful misreading, and contempt. Do I overstate the situation? At any rate I would not expect to encounter memory, judgement, and love at an MLA conference.
Dale Nelson
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