Book contents
- The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson
- The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Short Titles and Note on the Text and Cover Art
- Introduction: Contemporary Johnson
- Chapter 1 Johnson, Ethics, and Living
- Chapter 2 Johnson and the Essay
- Chapter 3 Johnson and Renaissance Humanism
- Chapter 4 Johnson and Language
- Chapter 5 Johnson and British Historiography
- Chapter 6 Johnson and Fiction
- Chapter 7 Johnson and Gender
- Chapter 8 Johnson, Race, and Slavery
- Chapter 9 Johnson’s Politics
- Chapter 10 Johnson’s Poetry
- Chapter 11 Johnson’s Editions of Shakespeare
- Chapter 12 Johnson’s Lives of the Poets: A Guided Tour
- Chapter 13 Johnson as Biographer
- Chapter 14 Johnson and Travel
- Chapter 15 Johnson and Disability
- Chapter 16 Representing Johnson in Life and After
- Chapter 17 Johnson among the Scholars
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
Chapter 17 - Johnson among the Scholars
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2022
- The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson
- The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Short Titles and Note on the Text and Cover Art
- Introduction: Contemporary Johnson
- Chapter 1 Johnson, Ethics, and Living
- Chapter 2 Johnson and the Essay
- Chapter 3 Johnson and Renaissance Humanism
- Chapter 4 Johnson and Language
- Chapter 5 Johnson and British Historiography
- Chapter 6 Johnson and Fiction
- Chapter 7 Johnson and Gender
- Chapter 8 Johnson, Race, and Slavery
- Chapter 9 Johnson’s Politics
- Chapter 10 Johnson’s Poetry
- Chapter 11 Johnson’s Editions of Shakespeare
- Chapter 12 Johnson’s Lives of the Poets: A Guided Tour
- Chapter 13 Johnson as Biographer
- Chapter 14 Johnson and Travel
- Chapter 15 Johnson and Disability
- Chapter 16 Representing Johnson in Life and After
- Chapter 17 Johnson among the Scholars
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
Summary
Like Johnson himself, the community of his devoted readers is divided in its attitude to the academy. Some Johnsonians are enthusiastic followers of the Great Cham striving to achieve the envied status of Johnsonianissimus without the taint of academic criticism; others are academics first and devotees of Johnson second. These humanistic scholars are often concerned with the text of Johnson, whereas the Johnsonians are concerned with his personality. A contest between these biographers, on the one hand, and those bibliographers, on the other, played itself out in the history of the Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson, twenty-three volumes (1958–2018). The impetus for the edition came largely from Johnsonians, but as time wore on, the academics became gradually more influential, and their approach eventually prevailed. This chapter is a kind of archaeology of the edition and reveals this shift in emphasis over time and a difference between American and British approaches to literary criticism.
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- The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson , pp. 239 - 251Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022