Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson, Paperback, 9781774414279 | Buy online at The Nile
Departments
 Free Returns*

Preface to Shakespeare

Author: Samuel Johnson  

Preface to Shakespeare is a classic Shakespeare studies text by Samuel Johnson.

Read more
Product Unavailable

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Summary

Preface to Shakespeare is a classic Shakespeare studies text by Samuel Johnson.

Read more

Description

Preface to Shakespeare is a classic Shakespeare studies text by Samuel Johnson. That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time.

Some of the notes to Measure for Measure, Henry IV, Henry V, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello

Read more

About the Author

Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 [OS 7 September] - 13 December 1784), often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. Religiously, he was a devout Anglican[1], and politically a committed Tory. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes Johnson as arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history.[2] He is the subject of James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, described by Walter Jackson Bate as the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature.[3] Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford, for just over a year, but a lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography Life of Mr Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene. After nine years of work, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755. It had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been acclaimed as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship.[4] This work brought Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson's was the pre-eminent British dictionary.[5] His later works included essays, an influential annotated edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, and the widely read tale The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; Johnson described their travels in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, a collection of biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.

Read more

Product Details

Publisher
Binker North
Published
5th March 2020
Pages
74
ISBN
9781774414279

Returns

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.

Product Unavailable