Dr. Johnson’s Friends and Contemporaries: Goldsmith, Boswell and Gibbon




 DR. JOHNSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

Johnson ; Goldsmith ; Burke ; Boswell ; Junius ; Hume ; Robertson ; Gibbon

1735. Johnson's translation of Lobo's "Voyage to Abyssinia."
1 738. Hurrre's " Treatise of Human Nature."
1738. Johnson's" London."
1742. Hume's "Essays."
1744. Johnson's" Life of Savage."
1749. Johnson's "Vanity of Human Wishes."
1749. Johnson's "Irene."
1750-52. Johnson's" Rambler."
1752. Hume's "Political Discourses."
1754-61. Hume's "History England."
1755. Johnson's Dictionary. English writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson publishes his Dictionary of the English Language. Standardized spelling of English words is one of the benefits that result.
1756. Burke on the "Sublime and Beautiful."
1758-60. Johnson's "Idler."
1758. Robertson's "History of Scotland."
I 759- Johnson's" Russelas."
1759. Goldsmith's "Enquiry into the State of Literature."
1764. Goldsmith's "Traveller."
1766. Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield."
1768. Goldsmith's " Good-Natured Man."
1769. Robertson's "Charles V."
1769-72. "Letters of Junius."
1770. Goldsmith's "Deserted Village."
1770. Burke's "Thoughts on Present Discontents."
1773. Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer."
1775. Johnson's "Tour to the Western Isles."
1776. Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations."
1776. Campbell's "Philosophy of Rhetoric."
1776-88. Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." British historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first book of his three-volume The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This work, considered a masterpiece of historical writing, is admired for its eloquence and flashes of wit.
1777. Robertson's "History of America."
1779-81. Johnson's" Lives of the Poets."
1785. Burke's speech on the " Nabob of Arcot's Debts."
1786. Burke's speech on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings.
1790. Burke's " Reflections on the French Revolution."
1 791 . Robertson's ' 'Disquisition on Ancient India.'
1791. Boswell's “Life of Johnson."

While we are talking about Dr. Johnson’s friends and contemporaries, Goldsmith, Boswell and Gibbon names come to our mind. They are brilliant in all lines of activity and ever alive. Their writings show Manners and foibles of the age, amusements, literary characteristics, and will aid in visualizing one of the most interesting epochs in English life.

Boswell: James Boswell (1740-1795), Scottish writer, became a close friend and biographer of the writer Samuel Johnson. One of the queerest friendships in all literary history is that between the mighty Dr. Johnson and the little James Boswell. Yet, queer as that friendship was, it resulted in a work which has brought undying glory to both men. Boswell lives through his labor in writing the life of Johnson; Johnson lives through the faithful espionage and transcriptions of his follower, Boswell. The Life of Johnson, by Boswell, is acknowledged to be the finest biography in our literature.   Read More Neo-classical Age The methods pursued by the Scotchman, unpleasantly dog-like as they were at the time, resulted in a faithful pen-picture of a great life, a life great not so much for its achievements in the field of literature, and these were mountainous, but a life great in the intrinsic worth of actual manhood. Even though Boswell was admitted to both the Scottish and English bars and practiced law but devoted himself primarily to the pursuit of a literary career. His most important early work was An Account of Corsica (1768), a sympathetic study of the struggle for independence of that island, written after an extended tour of Europe. 

In 1763 Boswell met the writer Samuel Johnson, and from 1772 until Johnson's death in 1784 the two men were closely associated. In 1773 Boswell was admitted to Johnson's Literary Club, which included the statesman Edmund Burke, the writer Oliver Goldsmith, the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the actor David Garrick. Thereafter, Boswell devoted much of his time to compiling detailed records of Johnson's activities and conversation. Boswell's accounts covered periods of daily association with Johnson in London and also described a trip that the two friends made through Scotland to the Hebrides in 1773.  Read More Transitional Period After the death of Johnson, Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785) and Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) were published. Boswell is best known for the latter work, which is generally considered a masterpiece of biography could be classed along with Famous biographies   Irving's Life of Goldsmith, Lockhart's Scott, Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Macaulay, Southey's Life of Nelson, and Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln.

Gibbon: Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), the greatest English historian of his time and author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788). Despite the availability of new factual data and a recognition of Gibbon's Western bias, which placed moral judgments on the material decadence of Roman times, Decline and Fall is still read and enjoyed. The first volume of Decline and Fall appeared in 1776. Gibbon was praised for the skill and beauty of his writing. He ignored outcries against his religious skepticism (he had dealt rather coolly with early Christianity), but he stoutly defended all attacks on his facts. The next two volumes, which bring to an end the period of the Western Empire (to about ad480), came out in 1781. The final 1000 years of the empire in the East unfold in his last three volumes, completed in Lausanne in 1787 and published in 1788.  Read More Neo-classical Age History is based on fact. In the sense in which it is most used, it deals with a nation's growth and traces out cause and effect through a series of events. It reflects the life and character of the nation. In proportion as it is faithful to fact and acute in the search of cause and effect, it is accounted great. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire can be well classed with Carlyle's French Revolution, Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic, Green's History of the English People, Fiske's American Revolution, and other great works of history that have furnished the background for many a historical novel.

Goldsmith:

(A) The Poet: Goldsmith, the contemporary of Dr Johnson, as Thomson was that of Pope, was as essentially a conservative in literary theory as Dr Johnson, of whose “Club” he was an eminent member. His two important poems, The Traveller (1964) and the Deserted Village (1770) and both are in heroic couplets. 

(B) The Novelist: Oliver Goldsmith became a novelist only by chance and necessity. The publication of The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) is believed to have been hastily arranged by Johnson in order to save Goldsmith from going to jail for debt.  The Vicar of Wakefield is a delightful novel.   Read More Transitional Period It is strong in the story-interest. The novelist has adopted the direct method of narration through the principal character, the plot is coherent and well-knit, and the story is gripping in its interest. The only fault that can be found with its plot is the way in which the final resolution has been hastily huddled up at the close. In 1770, Goldsmith published the poem The Deserted Village, distinguished for its pastoral atmosphere and felicity of phrasing; it marked the transition in English literature from neoclassicism to romanticism. Goldsmith also produced dramatic works at this time. 

 (C)The Dramatist: Oliver Goldsmith first took up the cudgels against the sentimental drama in The Good-natured Man (1768) that cannot be regarded as a truly successful play; the plot moves creakingly, much of the dialogue is stilted, and there are scenes which show that the author has not grasped fully stage-requirements. All these defects, however, are remedied in She Stoops to Conquer or The Mistakes of a Night (1773). This comedy, of richly deserved fame, presents a peculiar and interesting fusion of different forces. In effect, the conception of Hard castle, Tony Lumpkin, Diggory, and the lovers, exhibits, not a witty intellectual approach, but the exercise of humour. Here are the sly smiles, the subtle sallies, the humane sensitiveness characteristic of that mood. Basically, Tony Lumpkin is born of Falstaff’s company; he is a fool and yet a wit; for his follies we laugh at him and at the same time we recognize that often the laugh is turned back upon ourselves.  Read More Neo-classical Age

(D) The Essayist: Oliver Goldsmith contributed largely to The Bee and his series of essays is entitled the Chinese Letters later reprinted as A Citizen of the World (1762). These essays were later collected and published in book form under the title The Citizen of the World. His character sketches are remarkable for their simplicity, grace and kindly humour. The characters of “Beau Tibbs” and “Man In Black” are as great classics as “Sir Roger De Coverley”. The comments on English society which we get in his essays are both simple and shrewd. They have the charm of his personality. His humour is all pervading, typical and artless. In grace, charm and a mumble good humour, he is one of the greatest essayists of England.

A TO Z Literary Principles from History of English Literature: Note 85




A Set of 26 Objective Questions & Answers
UGC NET ENGLISH QUESTION BANK
INDIAN WRITERS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

a. Macaulay in his Minute on Education (English Education Act 1835) advocated the introduction of the study of English in India. It was the study of English language and literature that opened the Indians the window to western culture and galvanized them with the progressive ideals that prevailed in Europe at the time. It led to the upsurge of nationalism and the Indian Renaissance of the 19th century. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)

b. Henry Derozio published his poems in 1823 and Kashiprosad Ghose published The Shair and the Other Poems in 1830. They were not eminent poets but they are historically important, because they wrote in English much before Macaulay. 

c. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was the first Indian writer of a novel in English- Rajmahan’s Wife published in 1864. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)

d. Toru Dutta wrote Bianca and The Young Spanish Maiden   published posthumously. Dutta was the first to write to capture the Indian ethos. She began her poetic career with A Sheaf gleaned in French Fields written when she was only nineteen years of age. It is a collection of translations of about 200 French poems. Here she shows much virtuosity in expressions and versification. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions) But her finest achievement her verse Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindusthan (1883) which includes the stories of Savitri, Sita, Prahlad, Dhruva etc. For the first time we come across Indian themes and Indian background in English poetry written by an Indian.

e. Drama was not attempted in early Indian English probably because it was difficult for the Indians to carry on conversations in English by the Indians. Indian English at the time was not as felicitous and fastidious as is worthy of conversational English. Mother tongue was the medium of communication and conversation among even the sophisticated Indians.

f. Monmohan Ghosh, brother of Sri Aurobindo Ghose wrote Love Songs and Elegies and Songs of Love and Death. He expresses his personal sorrows and sense of loneliness. There are some poems which show nostalgia for India. The technical perfection and the lyrical quality of his poems have earned for him an abiding place in Indo Anglican literature. George Samson calls him the most remarkable of Indian poets who wrote in English.

g. Sarojini Naidu interpreted the soul of India to the West and created  a sympathetic  Indian atmosphere. She began by imitating Keats and other English poets. Edmund Goose found it to be western in feeling and imagery. He advised her to attempt to reveal the heart of India and not a clever machine made imitator of the English classics. Her volumes The Golden Threshold, The Bird of Time and The Broken Wing are instinct with Indian spirit, thought and imagery. The Festival of Serpents is in the form of a devotional song and conveys an idea of the Hindu religious life. She uses Hindu theme and imagery in her Leila. Her image of the moon as ‘a caste-mark on the azure brows of Heaven” is a unique achievement of imagination in poetry in the English language. Sarojini Naidu has described typical Indian scenes in her poetry. She sings of the palanquin-bearers, lightly bearing their precious burden ‘like a pearl on a string’.Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)  She describes how the Coromandel fishers gather their nets from the shore and venture out upon the sea. She describes how the bangle-sellers carry their ‘shining loads’ to the temple to sell them to “happy daughters and happy wives”. Her metrical dexterity and craftsmanship show her mastery of English language and versification.

h. Rabindranath Tagore wrote mainly in Bengali language, but his English his devotional poems in Gitanjali has earned for him The Nobel Prize for Literature. His handling of poetic prose is an ‘impeccable metrical achievement.’ He perfected a kind of incantatory rhythmic prose and demonstrated that Indian thought and imagery can be as well expressed in English as in any Indian language.

i. Arabindo Ghose wrote in English, and his poems Urvasie, Love and Death, indo  in setting, sentiments and expression. His poems are full ol sensuous images and music and have a mystical note. They are close to the Vedic mantras.

j. Ramanujan’s first volume   Striders (1966) shows his mastery of image and expression. The title poem refers to water-insects that can stand motionless upon ‘The ripple skin/of a stream’. The title of Relations (1971) refers both to kin in India and to intimate connections between moments incongruous yet illuminating, from different periods of his life. He makes daring adventures into 20th century mind by the technique contradictions.

 k. The ideals of Indian struggle of freedom is reflected in  K. S, Venkataramani’s Murugan, The Tilller (1927) & Kandan, The Patriot (1932). With the publication of Raj Anand’s Untouchable (1935) and Coolie (1936) and Raja Rao’s Kanthapura(1938), the Anglo Indian novel has established itself in the estimation of the English readers.

 l.  Anand looks Indian life fully in the face.Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)  It is realistic novels, angry at injustice, satirical yet warm reveal generosity of heart and great sympathy with the unfortunate
— a hereditary latrine-cleaner in Untouchable, an itinerant labourer in Coolie and a simple villager in the trilogy The Village. In the Sword and the Sickle, profit and loss have replaced traditional moral imperatives. His fiction upholds the value of living and awareness.

m. R. K. Narayan’s deceptively simple English and ironic outlook make him particularly accessible to western readers. Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts are episodic novels about boyhood and youthful self-exploration.Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)

n.  Malgudi, Narayan’s fictional south India town provides a solid realistic setting for his tragi-comedy of human aberrations and attainments. The Printer of Malgudi in USA and the pavement money lender in The Financial Expert. the outsiders causing havoc in The Man- eater of Malgudi show Narayan’s command over irony and clear narrative style.

o. The themes of loneliness, of rootlessness, and the exploration of the psyche are displayed in Anita Desai’s novels, By the Peacock and Voices in the City.

p. In recent times, a number of youngmen educated in England have made their marks as Indian novelists in English language. Among them, Solman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Amitava Ghose, Arundhati Roy, Upamanyu chatterjee have hit the media and have won international prizes. Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Seth’s The Golden Gate, Rohinton Mistry’s Fine Balance, Amitava Ghose’s The Shadow Lines, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English August have found a global dimension. They write on sex, style and sophistication of modern life. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions) They seldom reflect the Indian consciousness and only reveal their confused identities. They write in sophisticated English.

q. In 1980 Salman Rushdie published the novel Midnight’s Children. With this book, Rushdie became one of the first writers in English to employ magic realism. This technique, made famous by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez in Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1970), blends fantasy and realism. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)

r. Midnight’s Children - The experience of moving with his family between India and Pakistan, and eventually emigrating to Britain, positioned Rushdie well to examine nationality in the late 20th century is noted for its insights into issues of personal and national identity in India and Pakistan as postcolonial nations.

s. Many Indians write good English in their prose works. Jawaharlal Nehru, Radhakrishnan, Nirad C. Choudhury have established their reputation as writers in English in England and western countries.

t. Indian writers have shown their deficiency in writing drama in English. Aurobindo’s plays Perseus, The Deliverer, Eric are written in the blank verse of Shakespeare and this sounds artificial and unnatural in the modern age. Prose plays like Harindranath’s Five Plays, Rahamin’s Daugher of India, Asif Currimboy’s The Tourist Mecca, the Dumb Dancer do not show the writer’s command over colloquial idioms. Dialogues are often dull and drab. Nissim Ezekiel in his plays Nabin and The Marriage Poem shows success in dialogue. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)

u. The Indian novel in English is characterised by a variety of themes, techniques and attitudes. They write clean English, but they seldom faithfully reflect the cultural contact and cultural change. Moreover, they seldom create three dimensional characters.

v. One of the most ambitious and innovative members of this group of authors is Amitav Ghosh. His novel The Shadow Lines (1988) simultaneously traces the histories of two families, one Indian and one British, and exposes the senseless nature of the violence that accompanied the division of the Indian state of Bengal, leading to the formation of East Pakistan in 1947 and then of Bangladesh in 1971. The Shadow Lines questions the validity of all sorts of boundaries, national and international.

w. Rushdie, Seth, Ghosh, and Roy are only a few of the many prominent Indian writers who have written powerful novels about living in a post-colonial world and who have gained attention on the world stage. The writings of these authors—with their innovative approaches, compelling drama, and masterful style—make Indian literature, especially that in English, one of the most robust national literatures in the modern world.

x. In 1988 Raja Roa received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, an award given every two years to outstanding world writers. Read More A to Z (Objective Questions)

y. In her novels and short stories about life in India, Anita Desai describes the aspirations and struggles of ordinary people in her homeland. She published her first novel, Cry, the Peacock, in 1963.

z. The current generation of South Asian writers in English appears largely unwilling to acknowledge Rabindranath Tagore as a forerunner. But the poet Nissim Ezekiel thought that he was too important a figure to be passed over, saying in a 1980 lecture that 'any educated Indian today and for a long time to come who has not had the profoundest possible Read More A to Z (Objective Questions) experience of Tagore has missed a crucial element in the shaping of modern Indian culture.' And in his introduction to selections from Tagore’s writings in The Picador Book of Modern I.


Ref: 1. History of English Literature- Albert     
2. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature
3. UGC NET OLD QUESTION PAPERS
4. INDIANMASTERS OF ENGLISH by E. E. SPEIGHT

Plot of Euripides’ Medea is Steadily Developed from Prologue to Devastating Climax



"I depict men as they ought to be, but Euripides portrays them as they are."

Sophocles (496? - 406 BC)
 
Euripides wrote about ninety tragic plays of which eighteen are extant. We should also include Rhesus and one satyric play, which have been transmitted to us. The surviving plays are Alcestis (438 B. C., Medea (431 B. C.), Hippolytus (428 B. C.), Trojan Women (415 B. C.), Helen (412 B. C.), Orestes (408 B. C.), Iphigenia at Aulis (405 B. C.), Bacchae (405 B. C.), Andromache, Children of Heracles, Hecuba, Suppliants, Electra, Madness of Heracles, Iphigenia in Tauris, Ion, Phoenissae, Cyclops, and Rhesus.

Euripides’ plays received criticism for their structure. His use of the chorus as independent of the chief action of the drama was unconventional, and some of his works contain brilliant detached episodes that do not form coherent units through which the plots are gradually developed. However, this criticism does not hold true of many of Euripides’ plays. In Medea, for example, the plot is steadily developed from prologue to devastating climax. In many of Euripides’ later plays, the choral odes serve to reinforce leading themes rather than to advance the dramatic action. Euripides has also been criticized for using the explanatory prologue, in which he makes known to the spectators the events that precede the opening of the play and often outlines coming events. Aristophanes ridiculed him for the mechanical and exaggerated use of this device, which was frequently burdened with long histories of the dramatis personae. His other devices include the deus ex machina, the unexpected introduction of a god to facilitate, or bring about, the denouement; and the alteration of legends to suit the requirements of plot. Read More History of English Literature ( Essay)

Medea is a tragedy dealing with Jason’s treachery and his decision to marry Glauce. Medea once helped Jason to win the Golden Fleece, Jason completely forgot all this and was passionately in love with another woman. Medea reminded her husband of all that she had done to him. Jason, however, remained unmoved. Medea was almost petrified in grief and later the grief was turned to ungovernable fury. Medea’s children came, and their tutor informed the Nurse that Jason, on an instruction from his new father-in-law, decided to expel Medea and the children from the kingdom. Mad in passion, Medea went on cursing Jason and even the children. The Nurse kept the children out of the mother’s sight. As the chorus of the Corinthian women came there, Medea gave vent to her feelings to them, and the chorus had unbounded sympathy for her. King Creon, the new father-in-law of Jason ordered Medea and her children to leave the Kingdom. He had a suspicion that Medea might do some mischief to his daughter. Medea persuaded him to let her live in the palace, for she had no grudge against his daughter. Read More History of English Literature ( Essay)Medea lost no opportunity of avenging the grievous wrong. She was the daughter of a King, and, therefore, she was not a woman to let things lying down. Jason appeared on the scene and sharply scolded her for her passionate outburst, and asked her to prepare herself for the exile. Medea reminded him of all the inestimable services she had rendered. She had left her own kingdom and her people for the sake of love, and in return she was savagely betrayed. Jason defended himself by saying that he was going to marry the Corinthian princess as a matter of policy, because this marriage would bring him a number of dependable allies. These arguments fell flat upon Medea.

As Medea was left alone in utter despair, Aegeus, the King of Athens appeared there and told her that he had been to Delphos to enquire if he would have a son. Medea said that, if he extended his hospitality to her, she could work her spells so that he might have a son. Read More History of English Literature ( Essay)Aegeus said that he would not ask her to go to his Kingdom. But if she could go, there on her own, he would espouse her cause.

EURIPIDES
Medea now successfully planned her design. She would kill Creon, Glauce, and her own children. She sent for Jason, and apologized to him for the harsh words. Jason was highly pleased and apparently the husband and wife were quits. Medea asked Jason to request his new father-in-law to let her stay in Corinth. She sent a robe and a golden chaplet to Glauce as a token of love.Read More History of English Literature ( Essay) The robe was poisoned, and as soon as the princess wore it, she died. The father in his attempt to remove the robe was himself poisoned. Medea then killed her children. Jason came too late only to find that the children were dead. In a fit of frenzy Jason sought to kill her, but she hurriedly rode away in a chariot, drawn by the winged dragons. She took with her the dead bodies of her children for burial. She predicted that Jason’s life would be long and unhappy. Then she proceeded to the Kingdom of Aegeus.

 Medea is one of the greatest dramas of Euripides. Critics have found fault with Medea’s inconsistency of character and her conflicting motives. Aristotle in his Poetics expressed his displeasure at Medea’s unnatural escape by a chariot, drawn by horses. Medea was more a magician than a normal woman, and she did everything with the aid of sorcery.

In defence of Medea we must say that she may not be a devoted and loyal wife like Alcestis, and yet she loved Jason not wisely but only too well. Aristotle is perfectly justified in saying that Medea is the most pathetic of the tragedies. It retained a firm grip upon the minds of the succeeding generations of readers and dramatists. We can never forget that Medea is a deeply wronged wife and mother. But as she was intent on her revenge, she reminded the readers of Clytemnestra and Macbeth. When Creon demanded her exile, she felt extremely forlorn.

“My enemies crowd on all sail,
And there is now no haven from despair.”
 Ardhendu De 

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