The Poetry of Johnson (Masterplots, Definitive Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Samuel Johnson
- First Published: 1738
- Genres: Poetry
- Subjects: Authors or writers, Literature, Poetry or poets, England or English people, Eighteenth century, London, Neoclassicism, Literary criticism
Critical Evaluation:
The poetry of Samuel Johnson is closely related in both content and tone to the rest of his work. His pervasive moral vision of the transitory nature of all human existence and the consequent folly of man’s striving for worldly success provides the central themes for his two best known poems, London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, as well as for his oriental fable, Rasselas, his Shakespearian criticism, many of his periodical essays, and several of the Lives of the Poets. In his verse, as in his prose works, Johnson moves from...
[The entire page is 1908 words long]
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