Lives Of The Poets Gay Thomson Young And Others

Author : Samuel Johnson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781406535037
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (35 download)

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Download or read book Lives of the Poets written by Samuel Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2007-07 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 would suggest. They ran until 1752. Initially they were not popular, but once collected as a volume they found a large audience. Johnson's final major work was his Lives of the Poets (1781), comprising short biographies of about 50 English poets, most of whom were alive in the eighteenth century. Amongst his other works are The Idler (1758-1760), Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) and The Patriot (1774).