Samuel Johnson's Literary Criticism
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
At the heart of eighteenth-century English letters stands Samuel Johnson — poet, moralist, and arguably the most formidable critic the language has ever produced — and Jean H. Hagstrum's Samuel Johnson's Literary Criticism offers the most rigorous and illuminating account of Johnson's critical mind yet committed to print. Hagstrum systematically uncovers the principles that governed Johnson's judgments, tracing the philosophical, moral, and aesthetic foundations that made his pronouncements on Shakespeare, Milton, and the English poets both authoritative and enduring. Written with scholarly precision and a keen sensitivity to Johnson's prose style, the study presents Johnson not merely as a man of opinions, but as a thinker of genuine intellectual architecture, whose critical standards were hard-won through wide reading and moral seriousness. Hagstrum's work holds a distinguished place in the canon of Johnsonian scholarship, situating its subject within the broader Augustan tradition while arguing compellingly for the continuing relevance of Johnson's critical vocabulary to modern literary debate. The author's command of primary and secondary sources is impressive, and his analytical prose never sacrifices clarity for erudition. With a new preface added by Hagstrum himself, this edition invites both the seasoned scholar and the curious newcomer to reconsider one of literature's great critical intellects — and to ask whether Johnson's demand for truth, nature, and moral utility in literature may be more urgently needed now than ever.
Author: Jean H. Hagstrum
Format: Paperback
Genre: Literary theory
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
At the heart of eighteenth-century English letters stands Samuel Johnson — poet, moralist, and arguably the most formidable critic the language has ever produced — and Jean H. Hagstrum's Samuel Johnson's Literary Criticism offers the most rigorous and illuminating account of Johnson's critical mind yet committed to print. Hagstrum systematically uncovers the principles that governed Johnson's judgments, tracing the philosophical, moral, and aesthetic foundations that made his pronouncements on Shakespeare, Milton, and the English poets both authoritative and enduring. Written with scholarly precision and a keen sensitivity to Johnson's prose style, the study presents Johnson not merely as a man of opinions, but as a thinker of genuine intellectual architecture, whose critical standards were hard-won through wide reading and moral seriousness. Hagstrum's work holds a distinguished place in the canon of Johnsonian scholarship, situating its subject within the broader Augustan tradition while arguing compellingly for the continuing relevance of Johnson's critical vocabulary to modern literary debate. The author's command of primary and secondary sources is impressive, and his analytical prose never sacrifices clarity for erudition. With a new preface added by Hagstrum himself, this edition invites both the seasoned scholar and the curious newcomer to reconsider one of literature's great critical intellects — and to ask whether Johnson's demand for truth, nature, and moral utility in literature may be more urgently needed now than ever.