The Lives of the Poets
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1779-1781
- Language
- English
- Length
- Epic · 1200 ppover 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Demanding3 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendThe Lives of the PoetsOxford University Press, 2009Roger Lonsdale's selection from his four-volume Oxford edition, with the major lives complete.
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Commissioned by a group of London booksellers as prefaces to a collection of English poets, Johnson's fifty-two lives grew into a body of biography and criticism covering poets from Cowley to Gray. Each life mixes narrative of the poet's career with an account of his character and a judgment of his work. The longest and most quoted are the lives of Cowley, with its account of the metaphysical poets, Milton, Dryden, Pope and Savage, the friend of Johnson's own youth. Johnson's opinions, on Milton's politics or Gray's odes, are stated without hedging.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns The Lives of the Poets are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
