British Biography: A ReaderiUniverse, 2005 M07 14 - 320 páginas Biography 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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... beds and sleep in them. [1] All joy or sorrow for the happiness or calamities of others is produced by an act of the imagination, that realizes the event however fictitious, or approximates it however remote, by placing us,
... happiness or misery, which we think ourselvesnever likelytofeel, and with whichwe have neveryetbeen made acquainted. Histories of the downfall of kingdoms and revolutions of empires areread with great tranquillity; theimperial tragedy ...
... happiness, that he scarcely ever founda stranger, which he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be added,that he had not often a friend long, without obliging him to become a stranger.” The seesaw of Savage's life is preserved ...
... happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank or the extent oftheir capacity have placed upon the summitsof humanlife, have notoften given any just occasion to envy in those wholook up tothem from alower station: whether it ...
... happier students, we mightinsome have found vigorous sallies of that sprightlyhumour which distinguishes The Author ... happiness which competence affords, and therefore declared that hewas dead; which is perhaps the first instance ofa ...
Contenido
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 | |