On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Samuel Johnson
- First Published: 1783
- Type of Work: Elegy
- Genres: Poetry, Elegy
- Subjects: Doctors, Eighteenth century, Death or dying, Parables, Medicine, Heroes or heroism, Bereavement or grief, Life and death, Philanthropy or philanthropists
The Poem
“On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet” is a poetic elegy that celebrates the life, while mourning the death, of Robert Levet (1705-1782), a “lay” physician who for many years lived in Samuel Johnson’s London house and tended the local poor, seldom asking a fee for his services. Johnson, the eighteenth century’s greatest man of letters, was a scholar, a moralist, and a poet of limited range but genuine abilities. When Levet died in 1782, Johnson was near the end of his own long life—a life that brought him the fame and success his talents merited, yet was...
[The entire page is 1399 words long]
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