Samuel Johnson

English Dictionary

- Samuel Johnson’s biography

- Literary creation

Samuel Johnson’s biography English poet, essayist, critic, journalist, lexicographer, conversationalist,

regarded as one of the outstanding figures of 18th-century life and letters. Johnson became Doctor Johnson when Dublin University gave him the honorary degree in 1765. He had a huge, strong athletic build, his appetite was legendary and it is said that he often drank over 25 cups of tea at one sitting.

"One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts."

Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfeld as the son of a bookseller. His childhood was marred by ill health: a tubercular infection affected both his sight and hearing and his face was scarred by scrofula. Johnson was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. His father died in 1731 and left the family in poverty. Johnson's studies were cut short and he returned to Lichfield, affected by depression which haunted him for his life. He worked as a teacher at the grammar school in Market Bosworth and published his first essays in the Birmingham Journal. In 1735 he married Mrs Elisabeth Porter, a widow 20 years his senior. They started a school at Edial, near Lichfeld, but the school did not prosper. Johnson's lack of degree and convulsive mannerisms hindered his success as a teacher. Two years later they moved to London where Johnson worked for Edward Cave, the founder of The Gentleman's Magazine.

When he applied to a publisher for employment, he was found unfit for the job. "You had better get a porter's knot and carry trunks," he was advised.

The death of the poet Richard Savage, who was Johnson friend, gave rise in 1743 to his first biographical work. He addressed to Lord Chesterfield his Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language in 1747 and worked for eight years with the project. Lord Chesterfield refused to support Johnson while he was at work on his dictionary and later Johnson wrote: "This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but I find, he is only a wit among Lords." A patron was in his Dictionary "one who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery." Johnson's longest poem, THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES, appeared in 1749. On that same year his tragedy IRENE was staged and appeared at Drury Lane. Between the years 1750 and 1752 he edited Cave's magazine The Rambler, writing nearly all of its numbers. When Cave died in 1754 Johnson wrote a life of the bookseller for The Gentleman's Magazine. Johnson's working method as a writer was complex: he first made a rough draft, then "turned over in his mind all the Latin words into which the sentence could be formed. Finally, he made up Latin-derived English words to convey his sense."

A DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE was published finally in 1755, and the abridged edition in 1756. Johnson's financial situation was weak, although the work as a whole remained without rival until the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary (1884-1928), initially compiled by James Murray (1837-1915). Johnson wrote the definitions of over 40 000 words, illustrating them with about 114 000 quotations drawn from every field of learning. On the lines laid down by earlier French and Italian dictionaries, Johnson selected a 'golden age' from which he would work. For him this was the century that ran from the later sixteenth century until the English Restoration of 1660. It was not that Johnson did not understand that language changed. But he regarded most of the changes as degenerate. Johnson was not afraid of vulgar expressions in his dictionary:

to fart. To break wind behind.As when we gun discharge, Although the bore be ne're so large, Before the flame from muzzle burst, Just at the breech it flashes first; So from my lord his passion broke, He farted first, and then he spoke – Swift

In addition to his Dictionary and the philosophical romance of THE PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA (1759, later known as RASSELAS), Johnson published essays in The Adventurer (1752-54) and The Idler (1758-60). He wrote a number of political articles, biographies of Sir Thomas Browne and Roger Ascham, and contributed to the Universal Chronicle.

The new monarch George III awarded Johnson in 1762 an annual pension, which improved his circumstances. He spent his time in coffee houses in conversation and in idleness. In 1763 he the young Scot James Boswell, who became later his biographer and with whom he formed one of the most famous friendships in literary history. With Boswell he travelled in 1773 in Scotland and published his observations in A JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND (1775). Of his many remarks about Scotchmen perhaps the most famous was his reply when Boswell told him, "I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it..." Johnson replied: "That, sir, I find, is what a very good many of your countrymen cannot help." He continued his travels and went to Wales with Hester Lynch Thrale, a wealthy brewer, and accompanied him to Paris in 1775, Johnson's only visit to the Continent. Johnson's biographical essays of English poets were published in 1781 as THE LIVES OF THE POETS. The idea for the work came in 1777 from London booksellers and others. In this work Johnson abandoned his pompous style full of long abstract words. He wrote in short enough words, with a style that was sufficiently learned but comprehensible. Years he had spent in conversation marked his rhythm and vocabulary.

"My dear friend, clear your mind of cant. You may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble servant." You are not his most humble servant. You tell a man, "I am sorry you had such bad weather and were so much wet." You don't care sixpence whether he is wet or dry. You talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society: but don't think foolishly." (Johnson to Boswell, May 15, 1783) Johnson spent the summer of 1784 visiting Lichfield, Birmingham, and Oxford and returned to London depressed. He died during the night of 13 December and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Although Johnson's celebrity at that time was phenomenal, views about him as a pedantic and pompous writer came to dominate the 19th century.

The Vanity of Human Wishes In 1749 Johnson published The Vanity of Human Wishes, his most

impressive poem as well as the first work published with his name. It is a panoramic survey of the futility of human pursuit of greatness and happiness. The poem is an imitation of one of Juvenal's satires, but it emphasizes the moral over the social and political themes of Juvenal. Some of the definitions Johnson later entered under “vanity” in his Dictionary suggest the range of meaning of his title, including “emptiness,” “uncertainty,” “fruitless desire, fruitless endeavour,” “empty pleasure; vain pursuit; idle show; unsubstantial enjoyment; petty object of pride,” and “arrogance.” He portrays historical figures, mainly from England and continental Europe (Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, Charles XII of Sweden, the Persian king Xerxes I), alternating them with human types (the traveller, the rich man, the beauty, the scholar), often in juxtaposition with their opposites, to show that all are subject to the same disappointment of their desires. The Vanity of Human Wishes is imbued with the Old Testament message of Ecclesiastes that “all is vanity” and replaces Juvenal's Stoic virtues with the Christian virtue of “patience.” The religion of the poem is universalized, deliberately referring to “heav'n” rather than a more specific sectarian conception of the deity, though the New Testament virtues of faith and charity (“love”) play an important role in the conclusion, with “patience” substituting for hope. The poem surpasses any of Johnson's other poems in its richness of imagery and powerful conciseness.

Rasselas- the Prince of Abyssinia "Rasselas" is one of those "oriental tales" that were so popular following the translation of

"Arabian Nights" early in the 18th century. The writer of this genre would place his hero in exotic, usually imaginary Eastern lands where, after marvellous adventures, he would learn the folly of his ways and return home a wiser if a sadder man.

Prince Rasselas of Abyssinia lives in Happy Valley in a remote mountain fastness where by ancient tradition the royal child is confined until he is called to the imperial throne. Happy Valley is beautiful and fruitful. Life in it is pleasant, peaceful and cultivated. But Prince Rasselas wants to see the wide world and is determined to escape.

He turns first to a great inventor who builds him an airplane with which the prince may fly out of Happy Valley. But in a demonstration of his invention, the airplane crashes into a lake from which the prince rescues the inventor "half dead with terror and vexation.“ Disillusioned with technology, the prince turns to the philosopher, Imlac, who understands perfectly that no man is really satisfied in the comfortable cradle-to-grave security of Happy Valley. He also knows a route of escape into the challenging wider world. He agrees to lead Rasselas, his sister the princess, and her companion out of Happy Valley and on to the great metropolis of Cairo, where their adventures begin.One by one, the three young pilgrims join various groups that seem to have the secret of the happy life. But one by one they are disenchanted. They join a party of rich young pleasure-seekers, but find that the frenetic fun-lovers are terrified of the prospect of solitude, silence and reflection. The pilgrims then turn to the life of rustic simplicity -- only to find squalor, envy and meanness. They call on a hermit who has renounced the world and all its vanities, only to find he yearns for the flesh-pots of Cairo (and has put aside some money to fund his return). They look to a learned sage who they believe had conquered passion, but find him in inconsolable despair at the death of his daughter.They find that the old want to be young, the single want to be married, the married want to be single. No one is happy.

This may seem an obvious enough lesson to learn, and indeed it is. But the reason why Boswell read "Rasselas" every year of his life was not its broad theme but the wit and wisdom of the details. Take the long story toward the end of the book about the Mad Intellectual and his cure. The pilgrims hear of a scholar of great learning who has lived alone for so long and devoted himself so entirely to science and astronomy that his mind has become unhinged. He has come to the opinion that he controls the movement of the sun and the seasons of the earth. This delusion gives him an enormous burden of responsibility and guilt. But the pragmatic pilgrims cure him -- not by reasoning or philosophy, but by the innocent flirtation of the girls and a busy round of excursions. The philosopher Imlac (no doubt speaking for Sam Johnson who suffered all his life from a fear of madness) draws the moral that we are all prone to mental breakdown: "Few can attain this man's knowledge, and few practice his virtues; but all may suffer his calamity. Of all the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason." The best treatment for an attack is a busy social life and female companionship.

Practical good sense of this kind sustains the book. But in any case, its broad and familiar conclusion is not entirely commonplace. After their last adventure, the pilgrims "resolved to return to Abyssinia." But they do not go home empty-handed. They have learned from their experiences.

The prince will try to administer just and good government. The princess will found a university for women. Her companion will establish an order of nuns.

They know they will not live up to their ideals, but they will achieve far more than they would have done if they had stayed in Happy Valley and never experienced the world and its follies.