English Literature

Week 19

Please read:

Samuel Johnson:

• London, sel., p. 390.
• The Dictionary of the English Language, sel., p. 391-392.
• Letter to Chesterfield, pp. 393-4.
• The Life of Milton, sel., pp. 396-398.

Those who find Johnson’s treatment of Milton’s life interesting may wish to refer to his lives of several other poets, Ascham, Browne, and Pope.

There is further material at this a site devoted to Samuel Johnson and his remarkable legacy.

James Boswell: The Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., selection, pp. 401-407.

Those who would like to read more of Boswell’s remarkable book may read a good deal of it here through the Rutgers University site by Prof. Jack Lynch. The text is not yet complete, but it is growing.

Thomas Gray:

• “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, p. 409-411.
• “Sonnet on the Death of Richard West”

(Read at this location. This is Gray’s only sonnet.)

Those intrigued by him can find more in this website dedicated to Thomas Gray.

The Changing English Language, p. 413.

Extra reading for those particularly interested:

Those who find Gray’s proto-Romanticism interesting might also be interested in looking at Oliver Goldsmith’s similar poem from 1770, “The Deserted Village”, which was hugely popular in its day as well. This is not required, but can be found in Goldsmith’s collected works here. Goldsmith himself was a popular playwright and novelist, whose most famous works are She Stoops to Conquer and The Vicar of Wakefield.

On the other hand, those to whom Gray seems just a bit too ponderous and overly serious should give a look to his comically overblown “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes.” There’s more than a little of Pope’s mock-epic flair here. A few other works by Gray can be found alongside it in the Bartleby version of the Oxford Book of English Verse.

Please take the review quiz for Unit IV.