Johnson’s Lives of Poets
Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, 1779-1781
‘I know not that I have written any thing more generally commended than the Lives of the Poets.’ – Samuel Johnson, 1782
Click an image to find out more.
Dr Samuel Johnson
Whilst Samuel Johnson is most famous for his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), he was also influential in the development of critical biography as a genre. His 1765 edition of The plays of William Shakespeare features a preface that is often credited as the first piece of modern literary criticism, engaging with the commentaries of other critics to give valuable insight into Shakespeare’s work. When looking at Johnson’s development as an author, he demonstrates a gradual transition from a writer of literature to that of literary criticism. His last major work, the Lives of the Poets (1779-81) is the final culmination of this development and remains one of his greatest literary achievements, which still influences literary criticism to this day.
In 1777, Johnson was commissioned by a group of booksellers to write a series of modest prefaces to selections of English poetry. The project, however, soon became a labour of love for Johnson, and the prefaces became much longer and more biographically detailed than originally intended. Taking years to complete, Johnson wrote a total of ten volumes between 1779 and 1781. This series consisted of the ‘preface-biographies’ alone, as each was so long that the booksellers had to publish the poetry itself separately. Now commonly known as the Lives of the Poets, the volumes comprise the biographies of 52 English poets, most from the 18th century. The Lives are ordered chronologically by date of death, and range in length and depth of criticism. Some of the most detailed Lives include those of Abraham Cowley, John Dryden, Alexander Pope and John Milton, alongside less familiar poets today, such as William Collins.
‘Those whom the appearance of virtue, or the evidence of genius, have tempted to a nearer knowledge of the writer whose performances they may be found, have indeed had frequent reason to repent their curiosity.’
– Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 14
Johnson’s engagement with each poet is typically structured in two parts: a biography of each poet’s life that is followed by a critical analysis of their work. Johnson himself believed that biography stood between the ‘falsehood of fiction and the useless truth of history’, marking it as the greatest form of literature in his mind. Utilising detailed critical engagement with both the poetry alongside the poets themselves, Johnson succeeds in critically engaging with the work in the context within which each author had lived. These critical biographies, alongside the Dictionary and Preface to Shakespeare, helped to secure Johnson’s position as the leading authority on English language and literature.
The State of Biographical Writing in the 18th Century
Before Johnson’s contribution to the genre, biographies of saints, rulers and statesmen had a long history and indeed can be traced back to classical antiquity. By the end of the 17th century, a new market had emerged for accounts of the lives of less-celebrated tyrants, outlaws, courtesans and criminals. In the 18th century this appetite for ‘gallows literature’ was cultivated by the new media of newspapers and the widespread popularity of magazines.
Dr Johnson’s Biographical Writing
It was in this context that Johnson first started writing short, anonymous biographies for the Gentleman’s Magazine shortly after arriving in London in 1737. However, in contrast to the typically lurid biographies of the time, Johnson stood out by playing down sensational details. In the biography of his friend the poet Richard Savage, published in 1744, he gave a compassionate account of a complex character who had led a controversial life. Characteristically, Johnson used the material to address wider ethical questions on the human condition in 18th century society.
Before writing the Lives, Johnson had produced a comparable work in his highly regarded preface to The plays of William Shakespeare in 1765. In addition to brief biographical details, Johnson evaluated the playwright’s celebrated greatness. He was notably prepared to portray Shakespeare’s ‘human nature’ and what he perceived were both his ‘faults’ and ‘beauties’. In this preface, Johnson remarks that ‘nothing can be styled excellent until it has been compared with other works of the same kind’. His approach therefore was to assess the work of earlier editors of the plays and thus to offer a comparative study of Shakespeare’s texts in order to understand his genius — a similar method is evident in his Lives of the Poets.
Johnson’s Views on the Purpose of Biography
Johnson makes his own views on the purpose and usefulness of biography clear in a number of his essays. He considered biography to be the best form of narrative writing, as it was ‘halfway’ between history and fiction. Indeed, in the periodical Rambler 60 (1750) Johnson says that ‘no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of condition’. He also states that biography helps the reader to understand and empathise, by placing us ‘in the condition of him whose fortunes we contemplate’.
Click an image to find out more.
Johnson’s ‘Life of John Milton’
Johnson’s biography of the poet John Milton (1608 – 1674) is a fine example of how he could reconcile perceived character flaws with the celebration of a poet’s literary genius. In this biography we also gain insight into Johnson’s own views on some of the significant political events of the turbulent 16th and early 17th centuries. These include the English Civil War, the execution of Charles I, the Commonwealth and the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660.
Civil War, Execution of Charles I and Commonwealth
During the Civil War Milton notably wrote his celebrated treatise Aeropagitica (1644), which condemned government censorship and defended freedom of speech. Johnson warns about the ‘dangers of such unbounded liberty … as power must always be the standard of truth’. However, he does not favour censorship because ‘the remedy against these evils is to punish the authors … and it seems not more reasonable to leave right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured’.
After Charles I’s execution in 1649, Milton became Secretary for Foreign Tongues for the Commonwealth (1649 – 1660). During this time, he wrote his Ikonoklastes in which he justified the ‘murder of the King’ and offered a defence of the right of the people to hold rulers like Charles to account. As a supporter of the monarchy, Johnson objected to this work as it allowed ‘the advocates for rebellion to insult all that is venerable or great’.
In 1653 Oliver Cromwell dismissed Parliament ‘by the authority of which he destroyed the monarchy, and commenced monarch himself, under the title of protector, but with kingly and more than kingly power’. For Johnson this was hypocrisy and ‘Milton betrayed to his power that liberty which he had defended’ and had sold ‘his services, and his flatteries, to a tyrant’.
In addition to Milton’s republicanism Johnson found other faults. He notably remarks that ‘there appears in his books something like a Turkish contempt of females as subordinate and inferior beings’. Perhaps reflecting changing attitudes towards women in the 18th century, Johnson rebukes Milton for believing that ‘women are made only for obedience and man only for rebellion’.
Johnson’s critical Analysis of Milton’s Work
Despite such strong criticism Johnson could recognize the poet’s genius. Milton is perhaps best remembered for his epic poem, Paradise Lost (1667), which concerns the Biblical story of the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan. Johnson praises this poem as a work of genius, as it unites ‘pleasure with truth’ and ‘the probable with the marvellous’. For Johnson, it was ‘a poem, which considered with respect to design, may claim the first place, and with respect of performance the second, of the human mind’.
Despite such compliments, Johnson was prepared to highlight the poem’s shortcomings because ‘faults and defects every work of man must have’. For example, he explains that the plan of Paradise Lost ‘comprises neither human actions nor human manners’ because Adam and Eve ‘are in a state which no other man or woman can ever know’. He also did not like Milton giving spirits physical form because he is attempting to describe ‘what cannot be described, the agency of the spirits’. Johnson also did not praise Milton’s earlier English works because ‘they are too often distinguished by repulsive harshness; the combinations of words are new, but they are not pleasing; the rhymes and epithets seem to be laboriously sought and violently applied’.
Johnson finishes his analysis by saying that ‘the highest praise of genius is original invention’. While ‘Milton cannot be said to have contrived the structure of an epick poem … he was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities’. Paradise Lost can therefore be considered a great work, although it ‘is not the greatest of heroick poems, only because it is not the first’. Perhaps Johnson’s esteem for Milton is most evident in his Dictionary, where he often cites him, along with Alexander Pope and other poets’ work, to illustrate the meaning of words.
Click an image to find out more.
Johnson’s ‘Life of Pope’
Alexander Pope (1688 -1744) was a poet best-known for An Essay on Criticism (1711), The Rape of the Lock (1712-14), The Dunciad (1728) and An Essay on Man (1733-34). Pope was raised a Roman Catholic, which meant that he could not attend university as Catholics were not admitted at this time. Educated at home by local priests, Pope eagerly taught himself Latin, Greek, French and Italian becoming well versed in the classics which Johnson valued greatly.
The Life of Pope is the longest of the biographies written by Johnson and is often cited as his most impressive piece of critical engagement. At the time of writing, many people were still familiar with Pope, his work and details of his life, as he had only died 35 years earlier. It appears therefore that Johnson wrote his Life of Pope in part from living memory, and his familiarity with Pope’s work. He also collected evidence from Pope’s friends, such as the Earl of Marchmont.
Johnson’s Critical Analysis of Pope
Pope’s early work indicates that he was concerned with fame and celebrity, ‘If no basis bear my rising name, But the fall’n ruins of another’s fame’ (The Temple of Fame, 1715). In his Life of Pope, Johnson labels Pope as an example of the “voracity of fame”, though this did not prevent Johnson from critiquing his life and work. He goes so far as to offer Pope as a warning to ‘let no man dream of influence beyond his life’, indicating that perhaps Pope was too preoccupied with his legacy to reach true greatness as a poet. However, Johnson does concede that ‘it was the felicity of Pope to rate himself at his real value’.
Despite Johnson’s critical analysis of Pope, he believed Pope to be a man of great intelligence and literary greatness. However, Johnson argues against some of Pope’s earlier critics and questions, ‘it is surely superfluous to answer the question that has once been asked, whether Pope was a poet? Otherwise than by asking, in return, if Pope not be a poet, where is poetry to be found?’
Johnson, Pope and Disability
Interestingly, Pope was also famously ‘the most notorious hunchback of the eighteenth century’. Pope suffered from a form of tuberculosis affecting the spine known as Pott’s disease, an ailment that stunted his growth and left him four-and-a half-feet tall, hunchbacked and frail. In fact, many of his literary rivals referred to him as a ‘hump-backed toad’. Perhaps Johnson’s own ailments meant he was more sensitive to Pope’s physical condition. He would not suggest this was the reason for his ‘poor’ writing, as other critics did.
In the Life of Pope, Johnson often describes Pope’s physical condition thoughtfully, ‘his stature was so low that, to bring him to a level with common tables, it was necessary to raise his seat. But his face was not displeasing, and his eyes were animated and vivid’. Johnson does not ignore Pope’s disabilities, yet he does not focus on them either. He instead writes a detailed account of Pope’s life and work, giving equal attention to his disabilities and abilities, failures and successes. Perhaps his highest praise lies with Pope’s dedication to his work, ‘Pope was not content to satisfy; he desired to excel, and therefore, always endeavoured to do his best; he did not court the candour, but dared the judgment of his reader, and, expecting no indulgence from others, he showed none to himself’.
Click an image to find out more.
Public Reception of The Lives of Poets
The Lives of the Poets have, at the time of publication and since, received varying levels of criticism and praise. In his famous biography The Life of Dr Johnson, James Boswell says the ‘Lives of the Poets is the richest, most beautiful, and indeed most perfect production of Johnson’s pen’. One of the most notable critics of the time was a man named James Gillray. Gillray was a caricaturist, famous for his political and social satires published between 1792 and 1810, two of which directly targeted Johnson’s standing as a literary critic.
The first of Gillray’s cartoons to be published was titled Old Wisdom Blinking at the Stars (1782). Gillray was offering commentary on the contemporary reception of Johnson’s Lives, which centred in the idea that he was unqualified to offer any such evaluation of poetry. In response to this criticism, Johnson told his own biographer, Boswell, that he expected to be attacked on account of the Lives and quipped: ‘I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works’.
Another contemporary reviewer said that ‘the general tendency of Dr. Johnson’s Work is rather to diminish than exalt our writers’. The Romantic poets who followed also rejected Johnson’s criticism as overly harsh. The 1913 publication of The Cambridge History of English Literature: The Age of Johnson was also critical of Johnson’s Lives saying ‘he was much more interested in the man than in that part of him which is the author’. Johnson’s Lives were therefore not universally celebrated, yet the legacy of the work and its continued influence on modern critical biography confirms its value as a literary work.