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The Lives of the Poets
Here is a substantial selection of Samuel Johnson's magisterial and unforgettable portraits of the lives of the English poets of the 17th and 18th centuries. Originally covering the lives of 52 poets, with the primary focus on Milton, Dryden, Swift, and Pope, Johnson's Lives was described by Thomas Gray as a "compendious story of a whole important age in English literature, told by a great man, and in a performance which is itself a piece of English literature of the first class." Unsentimental, opinionated, and quotable, The Lives of the Poets continues to influence the reputations of the writers concerned. This selection - featuring the lives of eleven of the most important poets - draws from Roger Lonsdale's authoritative complete edition. It includes an engaging introduction, helpful notes, and an up-to-date bibliography. Its publication coincides with the 300th anniversary of Johnson's birth in September 1709.
560 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1781
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775 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Johnson
4,736 books413 followersPeople note British writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, known as "Doctor Johnson," for his
Dictionary of the English Language
(1755), for
Lives of the Poets
(1781), and for his series of essays, published under the titles
The Rambler
(1752) and
The Idler
(1758).
Samuel Johnson used the first consistent Universal Etymological English Dictionary , first published in 1721, of British lexicographer Nathan Bailey as a reference.
Beginning as a journalist on Grub street, this English author made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, and editor. People described Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history." James Boswell subjected him to Life of Samuel Johnson , one of the most celebrated biographies in English. This biography alongside other biographies, documented behavior and mannerisms of Johnson in such detail that they informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS), a condition unknown to 18th-century physicians. He presented a tall and robust figure, but his odd gestures and tics confused some persons on their first encounters.
Johnson attended Pembroke college, Oxford for a year before his lack of funds compelled him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write essays for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage and the poem " The Vanity of Human Wishes ." Christian morality permeated works of Johnson, a devout and compassionate man. He, a conservative Anglican, nevertheless respected persons of other denominations that demonstrated a commitment to teachings of Christ.
After nine years of work, people in 1755 published his preeminent Dictionary of the English Language, bringing him popularity and success until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1905, a century and a half later. In the following years, he published essays, an influential annotated edition of plays of William Shakespeare, and the well-read novel Rasselas . In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland , travel narrative of Johnson, described the journey. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets , which includes biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.
After a series of illnesses, Johnson died on the evening; people buried his body in Westminster abbey. In the years following death, people began to recognize a lasting effect of Samuel Johnson on literary criticism even as the only great critic of English literature.
Samuel Johnson used the first consistent Universal Etymological English Dictionary , first published in 1721, of British lexicographer Nathan Bailey as a reference.
Beginning as a journalist on Grub street, this English author made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, and editor. People described Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history." James Boswell subjected him to Life of Samuel Johnson , one of the most celebrated biographies in English. This biography alongside other biographies, documented behavior and mannerisms of Johnson in such detail that they informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS), a condition unknown to 18th-century physicians. He presented a tall and robust figure, but his odd gestures and tics confused some persons on their first encounters.
Johnson attended Pembroke college, Oxford for a year before his lack of funds compelled him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write essays for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage and the poem " The Vanity of Human Wishes ." Christian morality permeated works of Johnson, a devout and compassionate man. He, a conservative Anglican, nevertheless respected persons of other denominations that demonstrated a commitment to teachings of Christ.
After nine years of work, people in 1755 published his preeminent Dictionary of the English Language, bringing him popularity and success until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1905, a century and a half later. In the following years, he published essays, an influential annotated edition of plays of William Shakespeare, and the well-read novel Rasselas . In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland , travel narrative of Johnson, described the journey. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets , which includes biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.
After a series of illnesses, Johnson died on the evening; people buried his body in Westminster abbey. In the years following death, people began to recognize a lasting effect of Samuel Johnson on literary criticism even as the only great critic of English literature.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 27, 2021
“But everyone who sings in the dark does not sing from joy”
November 27, 2013
Samuel Johnson is as wonderful as I don't know what. On that day when you find yourself in your large library in your small house with an evening to pass by the fire (if you do have a fire), pick up this book. It is also rather excellent as a resource for orienting your reaction to this or that poet, as you will find that Johnson has the astounding talent of putting his finger on a writer's very pulse and being nearly certainly damn right about the diagnosis. I admire Johnson spectacularly.
November 10, 2023
Short biographies and critical appraisals of 52 poets, most of whom lived during the eighteenth century. The lives are ordered chronologically by date of death.
Johnson divided his biographies into three distinct parts: a narrative of the poet’s life, a presentation of his character (summarized traits), and a critical assessment of his main poems. He adopted this method not because he failed to perceive relationships between a poet’s life and his works but because he did not think that a good poet was necessarily a good man. His method allowed him to make use of his recognition that “a manifest and striking contrariety between the life of an author and his writings” can exist and to assign different purposes to his analysis of his subjects’ lives and their poetry. Johnson expressed a hope that the biographical parts of his lives were composed “in such a manner, as may tend to the promotion of Piety,” and his moral intent is borne out in his readiness to chastise failings and to commend virtue.
Johnson divided his biographies into three distinct parts: a narrative of the poet’s life, a presentation of his character (summarized traits), and a critical assessment of his main poems. He adopted this method not because he failed to perceive relationships between a poet’s life and his works but because he did not think that a good poet was necessarily a good man. His method allowed him to make use of his recognition that “a manifest and striking contrariety between the life of an author and his writings” can exist and to assign different purposes to his analysis of his subjects’ lives and their poetry. Johnson expressed a hope that the biographical parts of his lives were composed “in such a manner, as may tend to the promotion of Piety,” and his moral intent is borne out in his readiness to chastise failings and to commend virtue.
July 29, 2025
An absolutely amazing collection of criticism, and strong reminder of why Johnson was the preeminent man of letters of his era. He writes with all the force and grace of the best of his Essays, and the result is a constantly vivid and strongly conceived series of lives. I read this in the OWC selection, which is usually a practice I aim to avoid and dislike, but against usual judgment I have to say that the selection is judicious and necessary. Every author of interest and the heights of the criticisms are published here, and just to make sure I looked at the lives of the poets not included elsewhere, and it is easy to see why they were excluded. Johnson needed material that was great to write great criticism, and the other lives simply don't fit the bill. Even when one disagrees with his many, many conclusions, the source of his sentiment is almost always coherent and in itself intriguing. It is also exciting to be able to read often extended accounts of often temperate but sometimes severe criticism of authors that have since been canonised to be beyond reapproach. This work was an important component of that canonisation process, but the fact that it was published before has meant that opinions about Milton or Pope that would seem ugly or impertinent nowadays could freely be given by Johnson. My favorites in the end were the lives of Pope, Swift, and Savage, and especially that of Savage. Try to not read this is in one sitting and go life by life, it is also immensely enjoyable to do so before reading a collection of the author in questions works to see what Johnson tried to say in action (which in any case was the original germination of these texts, which were meant to act as prefaces that thankfully grew too extensive for that purpose).
May 7, 2021
Great writers are not necessarily great people in the integrity of their characters, which perhaps most of us know, and yet cannot help but associate the excellence in letters with the personal attributes of the writers simply because we are enchanted and gobsmacked by the mind. Samuel Johnson, an eminent English cultural critic of the 18th century, also knew about these somewhat restively volatile facts about famous writers and poets of his time. The result was these entertaining and informative composite biographies of the poets of his time with his trenchantly honest eyes and esteemed erudition to disembarrass the person of the poet from the genius of the poetry.
Originally written as a referencing preamble to an edition of The Poets of Great Britain complete from Chaucer to Churchill, Johnson’s supplementary prefaces became so popular that the booksellers decided they were worthy of separate publication under the subject title of this review. And there were reasons that make Johnson’s biographies of the eminent poets attractive among the insipid panegyrics to the famous. A good bio is read in a way a good novel or short story is enjoyed with characters that are differentiated from the common because of their recalcitrant individualism that gets away with the intellectual attraction and personal flairs despite their flaws. In this regard, Johnson’s wit and sagacity play an essential role in being an objective judge of the characters and their works to the extent that none of his subjective poets could escape from his hawk-eyed criticism, be that ever great or small. Johnson’s biography resembles Herodotus’ parataxis in narrating the accounts of people and events. It consists of a summary of the subject’s life; accounts of their personalities and analyses of their works. The individual narrative account became a history of the poet, which showed something about his work and indicated the person himself.
For example, Johnson’s take on John Milton was so freshly revealing that it upended my view on the creator of The Paradise Lost. I used to think of Milton as a benevolent-looking wise poet whose blindness didn’t stun his will to knowledge and creativity and whose fatherly tenderness toward his daughters encouraged them to be his eyes and hands when the visions of the world became blackout totally for the poet. Instead, Milton was one of those who clamored for the liberty of others but did not grant liberty to others. He was an arrogant intellectual who disparaged the works of others whom he regarded as less intellectually esteemed than his standard, which was despotically biased in terms of impressive academic credentials. Milton’s poetry was intrinsically intellectual and not for the light-hearted pleasure of the heart roving through the meanders of fairyland. His elevated soul ascended in the sphere of the Form, the perfect beauty that was unattainable in this real world.
Johnson also cast somewhat contradicting masks on the creator of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift. Like Ben Jonson’s iconic characters in his plays, Johnson’s Swift appeared to be both miserly and munificent, flaunting and humble, aloof and social. I particularly liked Swift because, unlike other writers of his time and of our time, he was not an ace student with flying colors on academic subjects. Swift was, however, a great student of learning, always pursuing and laboring to learn however long it might take. He was a man of industry and diligence, which made him all the more human and imitable because his genius was hard-won, not easy born. Methinks that Swift’s resilient spirit tinged with feistiness for an Anglican Church priest had to do with his Irishness. He was an Irish man at heart, in nature and soul. Johnson also attributed the protean imaginativeness and admiring independence of ideas to his Irishness that resulted in wondrous creatures during Gulliver’s travels.
There are other poets than Milton and Swift in the book, and you do not have to read about them all if you are unfamiliar with them or their works because that would go against Johnson’s purpose of the writing. Or you can read the book as an admirer of Johnson’s signatory witty and erudite writings from which you can learn a lot about his subjects and himself. The book serves as an eighteenth-century intriguing exclusive close-up documentary. It is about celebrity poets whom someone like Johnson, who was something of Roger Ebert in the criticism of the art of literature, could unpick and reconstruct as they might have been sans the mindless blinded paeans to their works without even being read. Undoubtedly, Johnson’s views on the poets have been and will be subject to criticism too, but his writings piled with a bonfire of splendidly sparkling expressions and apposite vocabulary drawn on his natural faculty of mind are nonetheless worthwhile to spend your time reading.
Originally written as a referencing preamble to an edition of The Poets of Great Britain complete from Chaucer to Churchill, Johnson’s supplementary prefaces became so popular that the booksellers decided they were worthy of separate publication under the subject title of this review. And there were reasons that make Johnson’s biographies of the eminent poets attractive among the insipid panegyrics to the famous. A good bio is read in a way a good novel or short story is enjoyed with characters that are differentiated from the common because of their recalcitrant individualism that gets away with the intellectual attraction and personal flairs despite their flaws. In this regard, Johnson’s wit and sagacity play an essential role in being an objective judge of the characters and their works to the extent that none of his subjective poets could escape from his hawk-eyed criticism, be that ever great or small. Johnson’s biography resembles Herodotus’ parataxis in narrating the accounts of people and events. It consists of a summary of the subject’s life; accounts of their personalities and analyses of their works. The individual narrative account became a history of the poet, which showed something about his work and indicated the person himself.
For example, Johnson’s take on John Milton was so freshly revealing that it upended my view on the creator of The Paradise Lost. I used to think of Milton as a benevolent-looking wise poet whose blindness didn’t stun his will to knowledge and creativity and whose fatherly tenderness toward his daughters encouraged them to be his eyes and hands when the visions of the world became blackout totally for the poet. Instead, Milton was one of those who clamored for the liberty of others but did not grant liberty to others. He was an arrogant intellectual who disparaged the works of others whom he regarded as less intellectually esteemed than his standard, which was despotically biased in terms of impressive academic credentials. Milton’s poetry was intrinsically intellectual and not for the light-hearted pleasure of the heart roving through the meanders of fairyland. His elevated soul ascended in the sphere of the Form, the perfect beauty that was unattainable in this real world.
Johnson also cast somewhat contradicting masks on the creator of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift. Like Ben Jonson’s iconic characters in his plays, Johnson’s Swift appeared to be both miserly and munificent, flaunting and humble, aloof and social. I particularly liked Swift because, unlike other writers of his time and of our time, he was not an ace student with flying colors on academic subjects. Swift was, however, a great student of learning, always pursuing and laboring to learn however long it might take. He was a man of industry and diligence, which made him all the more human and imitable because his genius was hard-won, not easy born. Methinks that Swift’s resilient spirit tinged with feistiness for an Anglican Church priest had to do with his Irishness. He was an Irish man at heart, in nature and soul. Johnson also attributed the protean imaginativeness and admiring independence of ideas to his Irishness that resulted in wondrous creatures during Gulliver’s travels.
There are other poets than Milton and Swift in the book, and you do not have to read about them all if you are unfamiliar with them or their works because that would go against Johnson’s purpose of the writing. Or you can read the book as an admirer of Johnson’s signatory witty and erudite writings from which you can learn a lot about his subjects and himself. The book serves as an eighteenth-century intriguing exclusive close-up documentary. It is about celebrity poets whom someone like Johnson, who was something of Roger Ebert in the criticism of the art of literature, could unpick and reconstruct as they might have been sans the mindless blinded paeans to their works without even being read. Undoubtedly, Johnson’s views on the poets have been and will be subject to criticism too, but his writings piled with a bonfire of splendidly sparkling expressions and apposite vocabulary drawn on his natural faculty of mind are nonetheless worthwhile to spend your time reading.
July 4, 2019
Dr Johnson is the toughest critic to hold on for any writer. If you make it in his list it means you are a perfect poet. He was pretty cynical in his word. Once he said about Thomas Gray, 'I read his poem there are only two important stanzas in there I remembered one another one I have forgotten. He was a critic of highest height.
April 15, 2019
كنت وما زلت أرى أن مؤرخي الإفرنج أفضل - في الغالب - من مؤرخي العرب ، وهذا الكتاب مثل يُضرَب ، اقرأه ثم قارنه بتراجم الذهبي وابن خِلِّكَّان وأضرابهما . ولسنا من أنصار الإفرنج وأتباعهم ، كلا فما ذلك من شأننا ولا شيمنا ، ولكنا نحب قولة الحق الذي نعتقده .
April 12, 2024
The edition I read of Johnson’s Lives of the Poets is abridged, featuring seven poets. It made for such a full reading experience that I didn’t much mind the many pages which were left out. And from this abbreviated version, this much comes through; that when Samuel Johnson sets pen to paper, he is very geared up to write, and brings with him vast amounts of learning, an intimidatingly large vocabulary, impeccable tips on writing, a top ability of judgment of both a literary and moral nature, and attitude. His energy levels seem so high that one wouldn’t be surprised to discover that in real life he battled low periods of depression. But on the page, he appears consistently geared up; his literary powers revved up to the max.
The seven authors covered in this abridged edition are Cowley, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Collins, and Gray. For a man of such obvious good judgment as Johnson, I was surprised in his essay on Cowley how many samples he included by the metaphysical poets to prove that their poetry for its obscurity and desire to be admired is a negative specimen of verse. Johnson might perhaps have given away a tendency on his part for mania, for how terribly many examples he gives of metaphysical poetry because Cowley was of their camp. Peppering page after page of a style that he disapproved of was interesting up to a point, but then grew tedious. And in his essay about Milton, Johnson sometimes gets bogged down in the details of political intrigue that Milton got himself into, and keeping track of the situations was not easy for a reader who is not up to speed on the workings of 17th century English government. Happily, these are among the rare occurrences in the seven portraits included in which Johnson showed what I deemed to be bad judgment.
One of the most interesting parts of the book was his detailed description of Pope’s translation of The Iliad, which Johnson called the greatest literary production to come out of England up to that time. His portraits of the lesser-known Thomson, Collins, and Gray, while far reduced in length compared to the others, I found just as interesting as reading about the heavyweights. Collins suffered from insanity, and Johnson mentions that to combat this “dreadful malady,” he “eagerly snatched that temporary relief with which the table and the bottle flatter and seduce.” Any reader setting out to tackle Lives of the Poets should be sure to have a pencil in hand. Johnson has so much wisdom to offer about literature and life in general, that you’ll find much to underline. And if like me, you don’t read much poetry, I still highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the writer’s craft. For many of the deep insight that Johnson gives for poets will apply also to writers of fiction.
I have always found mythology tedious, and I was grateful to know that Samuel Johnson does, too, for he knocks mythology multiple times throughout the book for its dullness; and despite his great admiration for geniuses of the caliber of Shakespeare and Milton, wishes that they would have foregone such inclusions in their work. The editor of this volume, J.P. Hardy, closes the book with a very interesting excerpt from Johnson’s essay on the life of Waller in which he explains why religion is not suitable material for poetry.
One gets the sense that some of Johnson’s sentences he revised with the intent to impress, and perhaps it’s the inclusion from time to time of belabored sentences like these which give the reader, in addition to the rich sense of fun, also a slight feeling of exhaustion. But Johnson is a great guide to English literature. And despite whatever weariness being in the company of such a learned and articulate man affords does not in the least take from the exuberant charm of his blustery and sympathetic personality. Johnson’s company is intoxicating, humorous, and full of wisdom. And his book is a literary feast.
The seven authors covered in this abridged edition are Cowley, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Collins, and Gray. For a man of such obvious good judgment as Johnson, I was surprised in his essay on Cowley how many samples he included by the metaphysical poets to prove that their poetry for its obscurity and desire to be admired is a negative specimen of verse. Johnson might perhaps have given away a tendency on his part for mania, for how terribly many examples he gives of metaphysical poetry because Cowley was of their camp. Peppering page after page of a style that he disapproved of was interesting up to a point, but then grew tedious. And in his essay about Milton, Johnson sometimes gets bogged down in the details of political intrigue that Milton got himself into, and keeping track of the situations was not easy for a reader who is not up to speed on the workings of 17th century English government. Happily, these are among the rare occurrences in the seven portraits included in which Johnson showed what I deemed to be bad judgment.
One of the most interesting parts of the book was his detailed description of Pope’s translation of The Iliad, which Johnson called the greatest literary production to come out of England up to that time. His portraits of the lesser-known Thomson, Collins, and Gray, while far reduced in length compared to the others, I found just as interesting as reading about the heavyweights. Collins suffered from insanity, and Johnson mentions that to combat this “dreadful malady,” he “eagerly snatched that temporary relief with which the table and the bottle flatter and seduce.” Any reader setting out to tackle Lives of the Poets should be sure to have a pencil in hand. Johnson has so much wisdom to offer about literature and life in general, that you’ll find much to underline. And if like me, you don’t read much poetry, I still highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the writer’s craft. For many of the deep insight that Johnson gives for poets will apply also to writers of fiction.
I have always found mythology tedious, and I was grateful to know that Samuel Johnson does, too, for he knocks mythology multiple times throughout the book for its dullness; and despite his great admiration for geniuses of the caliber of Shakespeare and Milton, wishes that they would have foregone such inclusions in their work. The editor of this volume, J.P. Hardy, closes the book with a very interesting excerpt from Johnson’s essay on the life of Waller in which he explains why religion is not suitable material for poetry.
One gets the sense that some of Johnson’s sentences he revised with the intent to impress, and perhaps it’s the inclusion from time to time of belabored sentences like these which give the reader, in addition to the rich sense of fun, also a slight feeling of exhaustion. But Johnson is a great guide to English literature. And despite whatever weariness being in the company of such a learned and articulate man affords does not in the least take from the exuberant charm of his blustery and sympathetic personality. Johnson’s company is intoxicating, humorous, and full of wisdom. And his book is a literary feast.
February 28, 2018
The life of Savage was the first piece I read by Samuel Johnson. I fell in love immediately. His smooth sentences that packed in huge amounts of information was a massive pull for me. Several years having passed, I read a greater range of Johnson’s lives and… the life of Savage is still my favourite.
The intimate nature of it, the small personal details and the way he builds an astonishingly clear picture of an utterly irritating yet charming man make it soar over the others. Johnson may have opinions on Milton and Swift and Pope (and my goodness, he does) but it doesn’t have the immediacy of the Savage piece. I’ve had people like Savage kip on my sofa, people with talents who are entertaining but who also feel they deserve to be supported by everyone else because of those talents. Not only do I feel I know Savage, but I share as mixed a relationship with him as Johnson did, all because of that lovely writing.
The Cowley piece wasn’t at all interesting about Cowley. It would appear that he was very talented as a child and then pursued poetry in the style of John Donne, a style Johnson names ‘metaphysical poetry’. His discussion of this form is very interesting. He defines it as a style of the head, with lots of word-play and idea-play but lacking in the emotional heart and soul that makes great poetry great. I’ve complained about some episodes of Dr Who for the same reason.
Milton was an odd one, as Johnson’s dislike of the man and his politics was so apparent (though he does praise Milton’s consistency in his beliefs) but obviously admires ‘Paradise Lost’. His breakdown on the genius of its plan, his arguments for why it is a poem of big emotions and ideas, written by a poet who can handle size (if not minutiae) made me take down my copy of the poem - and remember why I find it so oppressive and heavy going.
The Dryden entry was a long one, which mainly praised Dryden for his critical works, though later, in Pope’s entry, Johnson confesses himself to be a huge Dryden fan. He expresses how the poems seem to be effortless, like the words ‘falling into their natural places’, but it was not enough to have me pulling down any Dryden.
Gay is rather shrugged off, as he sort of was by the Scriblerians - he was the Scriblerian Goldsmith. Congreve is shrugged off also, he’s mainly a playwright and writes pleasing fluff in verse.
The Swift entry mainly seems to exist so Johnson can lambast Swift for his grumpy demeanour. While Johnson is willing to grant Swift success in his writings - as far as they had an impact - he is barely able to countenance them as even worth his bother as literature. He reckons ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ to be only interesting in their oddness, and think ‘Tale of the Tub’ might be too good to come from Swift’s pen.
As for Pope, Johnson is such as fan, that he is more wiling to soothe over his faults. Johnson enjoys pointing out how much the critics really did bother Pope, and from this angle, his life would seem to be a sad decline into grump, obstinate critic baiting. Pope was the poet in the selection who I have already read the most and Johnson made me eager to read more.
The last in the selection was Gray. Johnson seems to prefer him to his works (and thought his travel writing best overall) but I prefer Kit Smart’s description of Gray: ‘He walks as if he has fouled his small clothes and looks as if he smelt it’
Overall, this may be my least favourite Johnson performance. I find the subject of poets and their lives too narrow and although Johnson can (and does) create some wonderful quotes and moments from the subject, it doesn’t let him really stretch his legs and go romping.
The intimate nature of it, the small personal details and the way he builds an astonishingly clear picture of an utterly irritating yet charming man make it soar over the others. Johnson may have opinions on Milton and Swift and Pope (and my goodness, he does) but it doesn’t have the immediacy of the Savage piece. I’ve had people like Savage kip on my sofa, people with talents who are entertaining but who also feel they deserve to be supported by everyone else because of those talents. Not only do I feel I know Savage, but I share as mixed a relationship with him as Johnson did, all because of that lovely writing.
The Cowley piece wasn’t at all interesting about Cowley. It would appear that he was very talented as a child and then pursued poetry in the style of John Donne, a style Johnson names ‘metaphysical poetry’. His discussion of this form is very interesting. He defines it as a style of the head, with lots of word-play and idea-play but lacking in the emotional heart and soul that makes great poetry great. I’ve complained about some episodes of Dr Who for the same reason.
Milton was an odd one, as Johnson’s dislike of the man and his politics was so apparent (though he does praise Milton’s consistency in his beliefs) but obviously admires ‘Paradise Lost’. His breakdown on the genius of its plan, his arguments for why it is a poem of big emotions and ideas, written by a poet who can handle size (if not minutiae) made me take down my copy of the poem - and remember why I find it so oppressive and heavy going.
The Dryden entry was a long one, which mainly praised Dryden for his critical works, though later, in Pope’s entry, Johnson confesses himself to be a huge Dryden fan. He expresses how the poems seem to be effortless, like the words ‘falling into their natural places’, but it was not enough to have me pulling down any Dryden.
Gay is rather shrugged off, as he sort of was by the Scriblerians - he was the Scriblerian Goldsmith. Congreve is shrugged off also, he’s mainly a playwright and writes pleasing fluff in verse.
The Swift entry mainly seems to exist so Johnson can lambast Swift for his grumpy demeanour. While Johnson is willing to grant Swift success in his writings - as far as they had an impact - he is barely able to countenance them as even worth his bother as literature. He reckons ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ to be only interesting in their oddness, and think ‘Tale of the Tub’ might be too good to come from Swift’s pen.
As for Pope, Johnson is such as fan, that he is more wiling to soothe over his faults. Johnson enjoys pointing out how much the critics really did bother Pope, and from this angle, his life would seem to be a sad decline into grump, obstinate critic baiting. Pope was the poet in the selection who I have already read the most and Johnson made me eager to read more.
The last in the selection was Gray. Johnson seems to prefer him to his works (and thought his travel writing best overall) but I prefer Kit Smart’s description of Gray: ‘He walks as if he has fouled his small clothes and looks as if he smelt it’
Overall, this may be my least favourite Johnson performance. I find the subject of poets and their lives too narrow and although Johnson can (and does) create some wonderful quotes and moments from the subject, it doesn’t let him really stretch his legs and go romping.
July 17, 2020
I've been on a late 18th/early 19th century reading kick lately, all of which started with Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of the Scotland, and has ranged afield from there to Andrea Wulf's Brother Gardeners to a biography of Wordsworth to a biography of Abigail Adams (like I said -- random). I picked this up several months ago and have been reading it in small chunks on a weekly basis. It is full of literary gossip from the period and replete with opinionated proclamations delivered with supreme and delightful confidence. The Live of Savage is (truly) hard to believe but very entertaining and Johnson's readiness to tear famous writers down to size based on his perception of them was also very engaging. I am looking forward to reading Johnson's essays next but am also thinking about going back to some of the editions of Boswell's journals that I haven't yet read. Fanny Burney is also calling out to me...
February 11, 2024
Cheeky play on Vasari, through whom, backwardly, I arrived here. Pope Swift and Savage and a weeny slice of Milton were enjoyed. Johnson’s command of the language and sentence structure makes, even by 18th standards, for beautiful reading. His personal relation with these poets also makes for cute gleam, given that often one is required to read between his lines, and his multi story writing structure.
There is a wonderful anecdote somewhere about Johnson requesting from Swift that a degree from TCD be conferred on him, and that he would “die on the road” to Dublin if examination for this conferral be necessary. It is mentioned actually in Leslie Stephens sketch of Johnson. I laugh when I think about this.
There is a wonderful anecdote somewhere about Johnson requesting from Swift that a degree from TCD be conferred on him, and that he would “die on the road” to Dublin if examination for this conferral be necessary. It is mentioned actually in Leslie Stephens sketch of Johnson. I laugh when I think about this.
July 18, 2024
I have the Avon Library edition, edited by Edmund Fuller. This contains a lot fewer lives than Johnson's original! Johnson's insights, reflections, and judgements are fascinating to read, and his prose a delight.
July 4, 2025
tldr: “this guy is the most genius poet that ever lived … let’s all point and laugh at how rubbish this metaphor is … the best part about his writing is that there’s not much of it … btw he was kinda ugly” x52
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 4, 2023
Vidas, escritas no seu estilo muito característico, e com a componente crítica a que nos habituou.
March 2, 2025
This is just a review on his life of Milton. In it, Johnson chronicles the main events of Milton;s life and then critiques his literary writings in chronological order. His biography can be known elsewhere, and Johnson’s comments on it are usually not very germane to my purpose of understanding Paradise Lost or its author. Regarding Adam Unparadized, the rough draft for Paradise Lost, I believe Harold Bloom found the luminous detail in his essay on that work in The Western Canon. Of Milton's life, the most insightful were:
"It appears, in all his writings, that he had the usual concomitant of great abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in himself, perhaps not without some contempt of others, for scarcely any man ever wrote so much, and praised so few. Of his praise he was very frugal; as he set its value high, and considered his mention of a name as a security against the waste of time, and a certain preservative from oblivion."
Of Milton's Writing, Johnson had this cogent series of things to say:
Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill the imagination. But his images and descriptions of the scenes or operations of nature do not seem to be always copied from original form, nor to have the freshness, raciness, and energy of immediate observation. He saw nature, as Dryden expresses it, “through the spectacles of books;” and on most occasions calls learning to his assistance. The garden of Eden brings to his mind the vale of Enna, where Proserpine was gathering flowers. Satan makes his way through fighting elements, like Argo between the Cyanean rocks, or Ulysses between the two Sicilian whirlpools, when he shunned Charybdis on the larboard. The mythological allusions have been justly censured, as not being always used with notice of their vanity; but they contribute variety to the narration, and produce an alternate exercise of the memory and the fancy.
His similes are less numerous, and more various, than those of his predecessors. But he does not confine himself within the limits of rigorous comparison: his great excellence is amplitude; and he expands the adventitious image beyond the dimensions which the occasion required. Thus, comparing the shield of Satan to the orb of the moon, he crowds the imagination with the discovery of the telescope, and all the wonders which the telescope discovers.
"He had considered creation in its whole extent, and his descriptions are therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagination to unrestrained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were extensive. The characteristic quality of his poem is sublimity. He sometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantic loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but it is his peculiar power to astonish.
"Through all his greater works there prevails a uniform peculiarity of diction, a mode and cast of expression which bears little resemblance to that of any former writer; and which is so far removed from common use, that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself surprised by a new language.
"This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in Milton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words suitable to the grandeur of his ideas. “Our language,” says Addison, “sank under him.” But the truth is, that, both in prose and verse, he had formed his style by a perverse and pedantic principle. He was desirous to use English words with a foreign idiom. This, in all his prose, is discovered and condemned; for there judgment operates freely, neither softened by the beauty, nor awed by the dignity of his thoughts; but such is the power of his poetry, that his call is obeyed without resistance, the reader feels himself in captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks in admiration.
"Milton’s style was not modified by his subject; what is shown with greater extent in “Paradise Lost” may be found in “Comus.” One source of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; the disposition of his words is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps sometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at last, may be said what Jonson says of Spenser, that “he wrote no language,” but has formed what Butler calls a “Babylonish dialect,” in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extensive learning the vehicle of so much instruction and so much pleasure, that, like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity."
"It appears, in all his writings, that he had the usual concomitant of great abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in himself, perhaps not without some contempt of others, for scarcely any man ever wrote so much, and praised so few. Of his praise he was very frugal; as he set its value high, and considered his mention of a name as a security against the waste of time, and a certain preservative from oblivion."
Of Milton's Writing, Johnson had this cogent series of things to say:
Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill the imagination. But his images and descriptions of the scenes or operations of nature do not seem to be always copied from original form, nor to have the freshness, raciness, and energy of immediate observation. He saw nature, as Dryden expresses it, “through the spectacles of books;” and on most occasions calls learning to his assistance. The garden of Eden brings to his mind the vale of Enna, where Proserpine was gathering flowers. Satan makes his way through fighting elements, like Argo between the Cyanean rocks, or Ulysses between the two Sicilian whirlpools, when he shunned Charybdis on the larboard. The mythological allusions have been justly censured, as not being always used with notice of their vanity; but they contribute variety to the narration, and produce an alternate exercise of the memory and the fancy.
His similes are less numerous, and more various, than those of his predecessors. But he does not confine himself within the limits of rigorous comparison: his great excellence is amplitude; and he expands the adventitious image beyond the dimensions which the occasion required. Thus, comparing the shield of Satan to the orb of the moon, he crowds the imagination with the discovery of the telescope, and all the wonders which the telescope discovers.
"He had considered creation in its whole extent, and his descriptions are therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagination to unrestrained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were extensive. The characteristic quality of his poem is sublimity. He sometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantic loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but it is his peculiar power to astonish.
"Through all his greater works there prevails a uniform peculiarity of diction, a mode and cast of expression which bears little resemblance to that of any former writer; and which is so far removed from common use, that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself surprised by a new language.
"This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in Milton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words suitable to the grandeur of his ideas. “Our language,” says Addison, “sank under him.” But the truth is, that, both in prose and verse, he had formed his style by a perverse and pedantic principle. He was desirous to use English words with a foreign idiom. This, in all his prose, is discovered and condemned; for there judgment operates freely, neither softened by the beauty, nor awed by the dignity of his thoughts; but such is the power of his poetry, that his call is obeyed without resistance, the reader feels himself in captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks in admiration.
"Milton’s style was not modified by his subject; what is shown with greater extent in “Paradise Lost” may be found in “Comus.” One source of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; the disposition of his words is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps sometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at last, may be said what Jonson says of Spenser, that “he wrote no language,” but has formed what Butler calls a “Babylonish dialect,” in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extensive learning the vehicle of so much instruction and so much pleasure, that, like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity."
June 11, 2016
I had always heard that Johnson was one of the great literary critics, but only knew him through scattered quotations, and the image that crops up in popular culture of a fat, imperious lexicographer.
So I was extremely glad to finally find the time to read these wonderful short biographies. Though many of the poets he chose to write about are obscure, and many of the biographies really are very short (like, 2-3 pages), this is an extraordinary collection of English prose, worth dipping into or reading all the way through.
My favourite lives were the Life of Richard Savage, which is a gripping story of genius, murder and low life, told with magisterial judgement, and the Life of Swift, which I found extremely touching. Other great lives here include the lives of Cowley, Milton, Dryden, Pope and Addison. I was disappointed to learn that Johnson did not actually write the included life of Edward Young. Johnson's prose is magnificent, his critical judgements are always striking and usually provocative, and the lives are filled with quotable maxims, which you should treasure up and let loose at dinner parties.
So I was extremely glad to finally find the time to read these wonderful short biographies. Though many of the poets he chose to write about are obscure, and many of the biographies really are very short (like, 2-3 pages), this is an extraordinary collection of English prose, worth dipping into or reading all the way through.
My favourite lives were the Life of Richard Savage, which is a gripping story of genius, murder and low life, told with magisterial judgement, and the Life of Swift, which I found extremely touching. Other great lives here include the lives of Cowley, Milton, Dryden, Pope and Addison. I was disappointed to learn that Johnson did not actually write the included life of Edward Young. Johnson's prose is magnificent, his critical judgements are always striking and usually provocative, and the lives are filled with quotable maxims, which you should treasure up and let loose at dinner parties.
November 1, 2013
It is not Johnson's fault that I am not included: I came along too late for that. Notwithstanding this unavoidable, but lamentable, omission, this is among the very greatest of biographical works, endlessly entertaining and informed by wisdom.
October 21, 2008
The critical gold standard, of course, at the gold standard price of $650. Happily there are cheaper editions.
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