#james-boswell — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #james-boswell, aggregated by home.social.
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“In his excitement at the prospect of the examined life Boswell invented modern biography. He wrote like hell, and the full fragrance, the authentic buzz, of his own life and period, such as it was, rises with Flemish exactness from every other sentence he chose to write down.”
—Andrew O’Hagan’s celebration of James Boswell in the London Review of Books, 5 Oct 2000
5/5
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n19/andrew-o-hagan/self-hugging
#Scottish #literature #JamesBoswell #SamuelJohnson #18thCentury #biography
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“A fool can utter a brilliant sentence but it seems quite rare for a fool to be able to write an admirable biography of seven or eight hundred pages”
Jorge Luis Borges asks, was Boswell just a lucky idiot? Or is his “Samuel Johnson” a brilliant literary creation?
4/5
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2013/07/28/lecture-johnson-and-boswell/
#Scottish #literature #JamesBoswell #SamuelJohnson #18thCentury #biography #Borges
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“While in Rome, Boswell posed for a painting […] Above him, an owl perched absurdly on a branch. Somehow the painter captured the mixture of silliness and self-importance that made Boswell so engaging.”
🖼️: George Willison (1741–1797), 1765
3/5
#Scottish #literature #JamesBoswell #SamuelJohnson #18thCentury #biography #art #visualart #portrait
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“I was intrigued by Johnson but found Boswell downright enthralling… an irresistible character in his own right, a contradictory, needy and sometimes infuriating man who drank too much, talked too much and preserved many of his indiscretions in writing”
2/5
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/james-boswells-scotland-106667503/
#Scottish #literature #JamesBoswell #SamuelJohnson #18thCentury #biography
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I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose. Besides, practice forms a man to anything.
-- James Boswell⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #JamesBoswell #Life
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Panopainting #Flowers #Junkyard #Minnesota
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The Many Lives of James Boswell
Terry Seymour’s 2022 talk for the Edinburgh Bibliographic Society, discussing his extraordinary collection of books, papers, & artworks identified with James Boswell – including private papers, portraits, personal books, & more
4/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSE-cbLmbTM
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury #BiographersDay
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Was James Boswell just an idiot who had the good fortune to meet Dr Johnson and write his biography? Or is this “Samuel Johnson” actually a brilliant dramatic character created by Boswell?
Read Jorge Luis Borges’ “A Lecture on Johnson & Boswell”
3/4
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2013/07/28/lecture-johnson-and-boswell/
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury #BiographersDay
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“The Life of Samuel Johnson was an instant sensation. While the works of Johnson were quickly forgotten, his biography has never been out of print”
—When the Worst Man in the World Writes a Masterpiece: James Boswell & the nature of genius
2/4
https://www.fantasticanachronism.com/p/when-the-worst-man-in-the-world-writes-a-masterpiece
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury #BiographersDay
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—“Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”
—“That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.”May 16 is Biographers Day – marking the date in 1763 when James Boswell first met Samuel Johnson
1/4
https://lithub.com/of-course-samuel-johnson-met-james-boswell-in-a-bookstore/
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury #BiographersDay
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When the Worst Man in the World Writes a Masterpiece
“The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. was an instant sensation. While the works of Johnson were quickly forgotten, his biography has never been out of print… It went through 41 editions just in the 19th century.”
5/5
https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/10/22/when-the-worst-man-in-the-world-writes-a-masterpiece/
#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson
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“In his excitement at the prospect of the examined life Boswell invented modern biography.”
—Andrew O’Hagan’s celebration of James Boswell, London Review of Books, 5 Oct 2000
4/5
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n19/andrew-o-hagan/self-hugging
#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson
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“A fool can utter a brilliant sentence but it seems quite rare for a fool to be able to write an admirable biography of seven or eight hundred pages…”
Jorge Luis Borges asks, Was Boswell just an idiot who had the good fortune to meet Johnson & write his biography? Or is this “Samuel Johnson” actually a brilliant dramatic character created by Boswell?
3/5
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2013/07/28/lecture-johnson-and-boswell/
#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson #Borges #JorgeLuisBorges
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“While in Rome, Boswell posed for a painting […] Above him, an owl perched absurdly on a branch. Somehow the painter captured the mixture of silliness and self-importance that made Boswell so engaging.”
(National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh)
2/5
#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson
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James Boswell (1740–1795) – a man for whom the word “scapegrace” might have been invented – was born #OTD, 29 Oct.
A Happy Bozzy Birthday thread
1/5
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/james-boswells-scotland-106667503/
#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson
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The Many Lives of James Boswell
From 2022: Terry Seymour’s talk for the Edinburgh Bibliographic Society, discussing his extraordinary collection of books, papers, & artworks identified with James Boswell – including private papers, family portraits, personal books, & more first editions of Boswell’s Life of Johnson than in any library in the world, except for Harvard.
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury
4/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSE-cbLmbTM -
Was Boswell just an idiot who had the good fortune to meet Johnson and write his biography? Or is this “Samuel Johnson” actually a brilliant dramatic character created by Boswell?
Read Jorge Luis Borges’ “A Lecture on Johnson & Boswell”, in the New York Review of Books
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury #Borges
3/4
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2013/07/28/lecture-johnson-and-boswell/ -
“The Life of Samuel Johnson was an instant sensation. While the works of Johnson were quickly forgotten, his biography has never been out of print”
—When the Worst Man in the World Writes a Masterpiece: James Boswell & the nature of genius
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury
2/4
https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/10/22/when-the-worst-man-in-the-world-writes-a-masterpiece/ -
—“Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”
—“That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.”May 16 is Biographers Day – marking the 1st meeting of James Boswell & Samuel Johnson in 1763
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury
@bookstodon
1/4
https://lithub.com/of-course-samuel-johnson-met-james-boswell-in-a-bookstore/ -
“The Life of Samuel Johnson was an instant sensation. While the works of Johnson were quickly forgotten, his biography has never been out of print”
—When the Worst Man in the World Writes a Masterpiece: James Boswell & the Nature of GeniusJames Boswell (1740–1795) was born #OTD, 29 October – happy birthday, Bozzy!
#Scottish #literature #JamesBoswell #SamuelJohnson #18thCentury #biography
https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/10/22/when-the-worst-man-in-the-world-writes-a-masterpiece/
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Johnson & Boswell’s Tour of Scotland: 250th anniversary
28 Sep, Edinburgh. Free (booking essential)
Celebrate the 250th anniversary of #SamuelJohnson & #JamesBoswell’s iconic tour of #Scotland, with a reading of Noble Prospects, a new play recounting the duo’s journey – followed by a panel of experts in #Scottish #history & #literature who will reflect on the context, consequences & significance of the Tour over the last 250 years
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@litstudies
Was Boswell just an idiot who had the good fortune to meet Johnson and write his biography? Or is this “Samuel Johnson” actually a brilliant dramatic character created by Boswell?Jorge Luis Borges: A Lecture on Johnson & Boswell, in the New York Review of Books
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury #Borges
3/3
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2013/07/28/lecture-johnson-and-boswell/ -
“The Life of Samuel Johnson was an instant sensation. While the works of Johnson were quickly forgotten, his biography has never been out of print”
—When the Worst Man in the World Writes a Masterpiece: James Boswell & the nature of genius
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury
2/3
https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/10/22/when-the-worst-man-in-the-world-writes-a-masterpiece/ -
“Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”
“That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.”May 16 is Biographers Day – marking the 1st meeting of James Boswell & Samuel Johnson in 1763
#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury
@litstudies
1/3
https://lithub.com/of-course-samuel-johnson-met-james-boswell-in-a-bookstore/ -
“I cannot well repeat how there I entered”*…
Domenico di Michelino, La Divina Commedia di Dante, 1465 — SourceA collection– and consideration– of the illustrations inspired by Dante’s The Divine Comedy…
A man wakes deep in the woods, halfway through life. Far from home, unpermitted to return, his heart pierced by grief. He has strayed from the path. It’s a dark night of the soul, his crisis so great that death becomes a tempting end. And then, as wild beasts advance upon this easy prey, his prayers are answered. A guide appears, promising to show him the way toward paradise…
[This month] marks the seventh centenary of Dante Alighieri’s death, the Florentine poet who wrote The Divine Comedy, arguably our most ambitious Western epic. Eschewing Latin, the medieval currency of literature and scholarship, Dante wrote in his vernacular tongue, establishing the foundations for a standardized Italian language, and, by doing so, may have laid cultural groundwork for the unification of Italy.
The poet’s impact on literature cannot be overstated. “Dante’s influence was massive”, writes Erich Auerbach, “he singlehandedly established the expressive possibilities and the landscape of all poetry to come, and he did so virtually out of thin air”. And just as the classical Virgil served as Dante’s guide through the Inferno, Dante became a kind of Virgil for later writers. Chaucer cribbed his rhythm and images, while Milton’s Paradise Lost may have been actually lost, were it not for Dante as a shepherd. The Divina Commedia is a touchstone for works as diverse as fifteenth-century Castilian and Catalan verse; Gogol’s Dead Souls (1842); and Mary Shelley’s Italian Rambles (1844), which finds the poet at every turn:
There is scarcely a spot in Tuscany, and those parts of the North of Italy, which he visited, that Dante has not described in poetry that brings the very spot before your eyes, adorned with graces missed by the prosaic eye, and which are exact and in perfect harmony with the scene.
If Dante’s poetry summons landscapes before its reader’s eyes, artists have tried, for the last seven hundred years, to achieve another kind of evocation: rendering the Commedia in precise images, evocative patterns, and dazzling color. By Jean-Pierre Barricelli’s estimate, a complete catalogue of Commedia-inspired artworks would exceed 1,100 names. The earliest dated image comes from Florence in 1337, beginning the tradition soon after the poet’s death in 1321. Before long, there were scores of other illustrations…
A thoughtful consideration and a glorious collection: “700 Years of Dante’s Divine Comedy in Art,” from @PublicDomainRev.
* Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
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As we visualize, we might send well-worded birthday greetings to Samuel Johnson; he was born on this date in 1709. A poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer, Johnson’s best-known work was surely A Dictionary of the English Language, which he published in 1755, after nine years work– and which served as the standard for 150 years (until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary). But Dr. Johnson, as he was known, is probably best remembered as the subject of what Walter Jackson Bate noted is “the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature”: James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson. A famous aphorist, Johnson was the very opposite of a man he described to Boswell in 1784: “He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.”
Apropos Dante, Johnson observed “if what happens does not make us richer, we must welcome it if it makes us wiser.”
Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of Dr. Johnson#ADictionaryOfTheEnglishLanguage #art #biography #Dante #DanteAlighieri #Dictionary #history #illustration #JamesBoswell #language #LifeOfSamuelJohnson #literature #MaryShelley #poetry #SamuelJohnson #TheDivineComedy