British Biography: A ReaderBiography as a literary genre is largely the product of the eighteenth century and of one seminal work, James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1791). Boswell's innovations revolutionized the genre and made it the target of suppression and censorship. He sought not only to memorialize a great man but also to reveal his flaws. Boswell reported long stretches of Johnson's conversation, noted his mannerisms, and in general gave an intimate picture such as no biography had ever before dared to attempt. After Boswell, there was a retreat from his bolder innovations, which amounted to self-censorship on the biographer's part. When Thomas Carlyle's biographer, James Anthony Froude, braved this trend against truth and allowed his subject's dark side to show, he was vilified in the press. The tensions between discretion and candor have endured in British biography since Froude, a point Carl Rollyson makes in the reviews of contemporary British biographers he includes in British Biography, which also contains Johnson's full-length biography of Richard Savage, excerpts from Boswell's Life of Johnson as well selections from and commentaries on Southey's biography of Nelson, Mrs. Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bront, and the revolutionary work of Froude and Strachey. |
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... , thatthere is likewise a pitydue tothe country.”If we owe regardtothe memory ofthe dead,there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF SAVAGE (1744) Johnson understood thefaults ofhis friend,
... Savage's esteem was no very certain possession, and that he would lampoon atone time those whom he had praisedat another.” Similarly, ofSavage's brief, atrocious career as an actor, Johnson deems thetheater “a province for which nature ...
... Savage suffers exuberantly, gloriously, and sometimes sordidly, but always in hisown savageway. Johnson's involvement withthe trajectoryand contingencyoflives iscaptured inhis tripartite divisionof Savage's biography—from its blighted ...
... Savage can they understand the natureof his life. OnlySavage hadthegenius tobe Savage,and readers must crossthe divide of personality, place, and position, that separates them from his life. ♢ ♢ ♢ [1] Ithas been observedinall ages ...
... Savage, aman whose writings entitlehimto an eminent rank inthe classes oflearning, and whose misfortunes claim a degreeof compassion not alwaysdue tothe unhappy, as they were often the consequences of the crimes of others rather ...
Contents
READINGS THE RAMBLER NO 60 JOHNSONS LIFE OF SAVAGE 1744 | |
EXCEPT FROM ROBERT SOUTHEYS LIFE OF NELSON | |
EXCERPTS FROM ELIZABETH GASKELLS LIFEOF | |
EXCERPT FROM FROUDES LIFE OF CARLYLE | |
LYTTON STRACHEY EMINENT VICTORIANS 1918 | |
REVIEWS | |
JOHN FOWLES | |